Bangkok: Thailand will allow the United States to fly surveillance planes from its territory to identify boats carrying migrants adrift in Southeast Asian seas, the country’s deputy prime minister said on Friday.

‘Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard had said earlier that the United States had made a request to fly such missions, as an intergovernmental meeting on the regional migrant crisis got under way in Bangkok.

‘Yes, we are permitting it, it is starting today,’ Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

600 new ‘boat people’ in holding areas

Thailand has 600 new ‘boat people’ in temporary holding areas, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn said on Friday.

There were still more migrants out at sea, Tanasak said, talking to reporters at a press conference during a regional meeting on Southeast Asia’s migrant crisis.

He did not say when the 600 new migrants arrived or where in Thailand they were being held.