Vietnam has informed its ASEAN peers that a leaders' summit to be hosted by it will be postponed from April to late June due to the spread of the new coronavirus, a diplomatic source said Thursday.

Vietnam, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, plans to host the meeting in the seaside resort of Danang.

As Southeast Asian nations scramble to contain the spread of the virus, speculation was rife that the summit would have to be postponed.

A special U.S.-ASEAN summit originally scheduled for mid-March in Las Vegas has also been postponed as the virus spread globally.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.


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