Lao PM exits early from ASEAN Summit

Published November 14, 2017 1:12pm

The family photo taken during the ASEAN-US 40th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Manila on Monday, November 13, 2017, shows left to right: Malaysian PM Najib Razak, Myanmar State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-Cha, Vietnamese PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, US President Donald Trump, President Rodrigo Duterte, Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Laos PM Thongloun Sisoulith, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Cambodian PM Hun Sen. Reuters/Manan Vatsyayana/Pool

Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has cut short his stay in the Philippines during the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and Related Meetings.

He has to attend to an affair of the state in his home country.

In a statement on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed Sisoulith's early exit from the ASEAN Summit.

"The Prime Minister of Laos, we have been informed, has a state visitor in Vientiane," he said.

"This is the reason why he has to leave the Philippines early," he added.

Sisoulith arrived at the Clark International Airport in Pampanga on Sunday morning, the first among the state leaders to arrive for the summit.

He was welcomed by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi and other government officials. — Erwin Colcol/VDS, GMA News

Tags: asean2017, thonglounsisoulith, laos, laosasean