During 31 March-1 April 2016,  H.E. Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha (Ret.), Prime Minister of Thailand, together with H.E. Mr. Don Pramudwinai, Minister of Foreign Affairs attended the 4^th Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in Washington D.C. at the invitation of United States President Barack Obama.

The Summit provided a forum for leaders to discuss how to further strengthen cooperation in nuclear security. The Summit also adopted the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit Communiqué to reaffirm the strong political will in the promotion of nuclear security in order to counter nuclear terrorism and prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands for malicious purposes, as well as adopted 5 Action Plans in support of the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, INTERPOL, Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) and Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (GP) in order to enhance international cooperation with concrete actions through these international organisations and initiatives, to which participating countries are party to.

During the meeting, the Prime Minister underscored Thailand’s role in promoting nuclear security including 1) capacity building of relevant agencies and their staff to carry out their work  in strict compliance with international standards and requirements; 2) outreach programmes to inform the general public on the potential risks related to nuclear security and 3) creating nuclear security culture in nuclear facilities to raise awareness.

Although Thailand is not a nuclear weapon state and has no nuclear power plants, Thai people have benefited from extensive and peaceful applications of nuclear technology in daily life. On this occasion, Thailand reaffirmed its role in promoting nuclear security as a confidence building measure for the international community, as well as concrete contribution towards strengthening international peace and security.

The Prime Minister also attended the Nuclear Industry Summit (NIS) and received the NIS Award from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in recognition of Thailand’s contribution in the elimination of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). Besides Thailand, 16 other countries also received the NIS Awards namely Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Georgia, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

During his visit, the Prime Minister had an audience with His Majesty the King of Jordan, where the Jordanian Monarch thanked the Thai side for assistance under the Rainmaking Technology Project, as well as discussed the issue of cooperation in the areas of security and defence. The Prime Minister also met with Prime Minister of Singapore and confirmed his acceptance of the invitation to attend and to be a keynote speaker at the upcoming Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on 3 June 2016.

Furthermore, H.E. Mr. Don Pramudwinai, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, had a bilateral meeting with his Turkish counterpart to discuss how to further enhance cooperation in various areas of mutual interests, particularly in trade and investment, and other multilateral issues.