WAR SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Well, Mr. Minister, welcome to the Pentagon. Welcome to the newly minted Department of War, here.
It's good to have you. You're the first for us.
And it's good to see you again.
MINISTER FOR DEFENCE CHAN CHUN SING: Thank you.
WAR SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: It was great to see you in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands for breakfast and for the entire Shangri-La. It's good to see you and your team. And welcome. I also want to congratulate you on the recent 60th anniversary of Singapore's independence. And as you know and I hope our friends in the press know, Singapore has been an anchor of U.S. friendship and presence in the region.
Our relationship has been crucial to regional stability and maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Our armed forces continue to train together across all domains. And this group knows it. Exercises like Pacific Griffin, Commando Sling, Tiger Balm, Valiant Mark show how our training has become more complex and more integrated over the years.
We're working together with a range of partners to share our common interests and goals. It's also great that Singapore participated in Talisman Sabre with the United States and Australia for the first time this year as well. And I know you're here to see your armed forces participate in exercise, forging saber later this week as well.
The United States is proud that more than a thousand of your warriors train in our country each year. And we look forward to welcoming Singapore's F-35 pilots in the years ahead. Glad that you're also going to have a chance to visit in Texas the F-35 production line. And we look forward to Singapore flying this state of the art aircraft very soon.
We also look forward to advancing our force posture discussions and providing best in class equipment and training for our forces. This partnership underpins regional stability and security. And advances President Trump's vision of peace through strength. So again, welcome. Uh, really enjoyed the time we spent together, uh, at the conference, your leadership, and welcome to the Pentagon.
MINISTER FOR DEFENCE CHAN CHUN SING: Well, thank you, Secretary. And thank you to you and your team for your kind hospitality. Yes, we have fond memories of your time with us in Shangri-La dialogue. We hope that you will come again next year to not just catch up with us in Singapore but also with other counterparts in the region. We thank you and your leadership team for supporting Singapore Armed Forces training in the United States.
And as you mentioned, we have one of the largest foreign contingent training on United States soil every year, day in, day out working with our counterparts in the US to improve our professional training and interoperability. And that has allowed us to plant the seeds for generations of young men and women to work together to grow up together to build the trust that's so necessary for us to work together.
We thank you for your support as well for allowing us to acquire the US technology to work with your team to improve on them. And as we say, it's not just a buyer seller relationship. I think we work on it, work on real capabilities together, develop new capabilities, not just to manage existing challenges, but also to preempt new challenges.
And we look forward to that partnership. We also want to thank you for allowing our new detachment to be based out of ebbing Arkansas, where our F-35 will be based. And then I'm sure that will start another journey together where a new generation of servicemen will train together. So thank you very much for your partnership.
And we look forward to working closely with you and your team to advance our shared interests.
WAR SECRETARY PETE HEGSETH: Likewise.