A joint security task force- operation Kibung will be launch next month for the Asia Pacific Economic Corporation Leaders meetings in November.
However, the next two months will see an increase in the presence of foreign troops in the country, who will be working in partnership with the PNG Defense Force and those in the joint inter-agency operation for APEC.
The next two months will see an increased presence of foreign troops in the country, leading up to the APEC leaders’ summit.
PNGDF’s Chief of Operations however says this is not new as some of the foreign military troops have been here in the past 4 years.
“They have come in not work in isolation but to support the PNGDF and also the overall government security effort towards achieving that conductive environment for the APEC,” Chief of Joint Operations, Col. Esekia Wenzel said.
He said the foreign troops will be coming in with high end capabilities.
“Capabilities that the PNGDF does not have, for example ship surveillance platforms, aircrafts. These are the things that are coming in, to fill the security gap that we have. We have always been coorperating with the US, New Zealand, Australia, and also other partners within the region,” he went on to say.
Meantime, Col. Wenzel says the PNGDF will continue to maintain its footprint in Hela, Southern Highlands and Enga and the Highlands region as APEC nears.
“We will search, this is based on the treats as per our intelligence assessment on the ground situation in the highlands region, right from now to the APEC and throughout till the end of APEC,” he added.
The security situation in the Western end of the highlands region has been reduced.
“We encourage the community leaders, the tribal leaders, and political leaders to all work together because all of us are all partial of creating that conducive environment,” Col Wenzel further added.