THAILAND: U.S. President Barack Obama holds bilateral meeting with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra during his first post-election trip abroad

Record ID: 859976

  • Title: THAILAND: U.S. President Barack Obama holds bilateral meeting with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra during his first post-election trip abroad
  • Date: 18th November 2012
  • Summary: BANGKOK, THAILAND (NOVEMBER 18, 2012) (AGENCY POOL) **CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY** U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND THAILAND PRIME MINISTER YINGLUCK SHINAWATRA WALKING INTO ROOM / OBAMA TAKING SEAT PRIME MINISTER YINGLUCK SHINAWATRA STOOD NEXT TO TABLE OBAMA SIGNING THE THAI GOVERNMENT HOUSE GUEST BOOK WITH YINGLUCK STANDING BY HIS SIDE VARIOUS OF OBAMA SIGNING THE GUEST BOOK OBAMA STANDING UP / SHAKING HANDS WITH SHINAWATRA CLOSE OF OBAMA AND SHINAWATRA OBAMA AND SHINAWATRA WALKING OUT
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Thailand
  • City:
  • Country: Thailand
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WRCXVHLW7RC0FR8GMC6QOXLO
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: President Barack Obama kicked off a three-country Asian tour with a visit to Thailand on Sunday (November 18), using his first post-election trek overseas to try to show he is serious about shifting the U.S. strategic focus eastwards.
    Obama met with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at the Thai Government House, where he signed the official guest book before posing for photographs. He was due to hold talks with Yingluck there and give a joint news conference with her.
    Earlier in the day Obama paid a short visit to Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok.
    Obama's itinerary will include a landmark visit to once-isolated Myanmar and an East Asia summit in Cambodia as he seeks to recalibrate U.S. economic and security commitments to counter China's influence at a time when America is disentangling itself from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    The U.S. administration regards Thailand as a key ally for advancing an "Asia pivot" that Obama announced last year with an eye to an increasingly assertive China. Obama, who was born in Hawaii and spent part of his youth in Indonesia, has called himself America's first "Pacific president".
    His choice of Southeast Asia for his first foreign trip since winning re-election on November 6 is meant to show he intends to make good on his pledge to boost ties with one of the world's fastest-growing regions, a strategy his aides see as crucial to his presidential legacy.
    It is his second extensive trek through Asia in little more than a year.
    In the centrepiece of his three-day tour, Obama will on Monday (November 19) make the first U.S. presidential visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, another milestone in Washington's rapprochement with the former pariah state, where a fragile transition is under way after decades of military rule.
    Obama will finish his trip in Cambodia and join the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit meetings that officially kicked off Sunday.
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