VietNamNet Bridge – ASEAN Ministers have agreed to speed up the building of an ASEAN community in 2015 based on three key pillars of politics-security, economics, and culture-society.

The ministers reached consensus at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat and related meetings of the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) Council and the ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC), in Brunei on April 10-11.

They agreed to effectively implement the grouping’s cooperation programmes, including the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity and the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Work Plan for Narrowing the Development Gap within ASEAN, at the national and regional levels.

They underlined the need to strengthen ASEAN’s central role in addressing issues related to peace, security, stability and development in the region.

To this end, ASEAN is required to increase dialogues and trust-building measures, share standards of conduct, and bring into full play existing tools and mechanisms for political-security cooperation in the region, such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ), the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting - Plus (ADMM+).

In addition, the grouping needs to show its continued centrality in the evolving regional structure, as well as in other regional cooperation frameworks such as ASEAN + 1, ASEAN + 3, the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

The ministers agreed to expand the grouping’s relations with its partners to capitalise on their support for community building efforts and encourage the partners to actively participate in and contribute to regional cooperation.

They said ASEAN and its partners should effectively implement designated initiatives, programmes and plans of cooperation, and be well prepared for upcoming ASEAN Ministerial Meetings and ASEAN Summits with partners such as China and Japan this year.

The ministers spent time discussing the East Sea issue, saying it is of ASEAN’s common concern as it is related to regional peace, stability and security.

They voiced strong support for the grouping’s common principles of ensuring peace, stability, marine safety and security, settling disputes through peaceful means, respecting international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), implementing DOC and preparing to build a Code of Conduct (COC).

They asked for strict implementation of the East Sea-related agreements, including the ASEAN six-point principle, the ASEAN-China joint statement on DOC, and early negotiations of COC, in order to maintain peace, stability and security in the East Sea.

The ministers assigned senior ASEAN officials to continue consultations with China to early kick-start COC negotiations.

In an interview granted to the media, Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh said Vietnam made a significant contribution to these meetings.

He said Vietnamese representatives gave opinions on major topics to be debated at the upcoming ASEAN Summit in Brunei, including promoting the building of the ASEAN Community, setting future orientations of the grouping, strengthening external relations, and developing ASEAN’s central role in an evolving regional structure.

They also discussed ASEAN’s prioritised orientations in 2013, including (i) building the ASEAN community, strengthening regional connectivity, narrowing the development gap; (ii) strengthening solidarity and promoting ASEAN’s central role in the evolving regional structure; and (iii) expanding cooperation with ASEAN partners to garner their support for community building efforts, as well as in dealing with challenges such as climate change, natural disasters, epidemics, terrorism, and trans-national crime.

Vietnam worked closely with Brunei (the incumbent ASEAN Chair), Thailand (the ASEAN Coordinator) and other ASEAN countries to have a common voice for settling East Sea issues.

Source: VOV