18th ASEAN Summit ends in great success

ASEAN leaders have agreed to raise ASEAN’s role and international status based on appropriate modes and abilities.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, his wife and entourage returned to Hanoi, after successfully concluding their visit to Indonesia for the 18^th ASEAN Summit in Jakarta.

A Voice of Vietnam reporter interviewed Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh about the outstanding results of the summit as well as Vietnam’s contributions to the event.

VOV: Could you brief us on the major contents of the 18^th ASEAN Summit?

Mr Minh:  The theme of the 18^th ASEAN Summit- the first meeting in the year of Indonesia’s ASEAN Chair 2011 is “ASEAN Community in a Global Community of Nations”.

The theme reflects ASEAN’s strong development over the past year and its orientations in the near future.

After 43 years of establishment, ASEAN has proved to be one of the successful and dynamic organisations in the region which maintains its relations with other countries and major regional organisations in the world. The association’s operations are based on a legal foundation of the ASEAN Charter with a roadmap for building an ASEAN Community by 2015.

ASEAN’s significant achievements in 2010 has helped enhance ASEAN connectivity, adding fresh impetus to promoting its relations with partners and elevating its regional and international role in dealing with global issues.

At the summit, ASEAN leaders discussed measures to bring into full play ASEAN’s role,

and give top priority to building an ASEAN community and maintaining peace, stability and development in the region. They also compared notes on international and regional issues of common concern.

VOV: Could you please elaborate on the major results of the 18^th ASEAN Summit?

Mr Minh: After two day’s sitting, the 18^th ASEAN Summit ended in great success with the adoption of orientations and practical measures to accelerate the building of the regional community, deepen external relations, enhance the bloc’s central role in regional cooperation mechanisms, and raise its international status.

The major results included ASEAN leaders’ agreement to implement the roadmap for building an ASEAN community and use the existing mechanisms, tools and forums such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia, the Declaration on Conducts of the Parties in the East Sea (DOC), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+) for the sake of peace, stability and cooperation in the region.

The leaders underlined the need to implement economic commitments on schedule within the bloc and non-bloc partners, especially in trade, service, investment and customs; bridge the development gap among member countries; effectively implement the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI), devise a master plan on increasing ASEAN connectivity and mobilising resources. In addition, they agreed to intensify communication activities concerning ASEAN and call on people’s contributions to the process of building the ASEAN Community.

Regarding ASEAN’s foreign relations and central role, the ASEAN leaders agreed to step up efforts to deepen the bloc’s relations with non-bloc partners through cooperation mechanisms such as ASEAN+1 (ASEAN with each dialogue partner), ASEAN+3 (ASEAN with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea) ASEAN+3, the ARF (the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS).

They also agreed to promote consultations, take joint actions at multilateral forums and pledged to accelerate regional cooperation in copying with challenges, especially climate change, natural disaster control, food and energy security.

The ASEAN leaders also reached a consensus on many issues related to peace and stability in the region and stressed the importance of strengthening solidarity and coordination along with fostering dialogues and cooperation with China to fully and effectively realise the DOC.

In regard to the Thailand-Cambodia situation, the ASEAN leaders expressed wishes that the two countries would solve their conflict peacefully in the spirit of ASEAN solidarity reflected in the TAC and the ASEAN Charter.

Also at the meeting, they agreed in principle to Myanmar’s proposal for assumption of the ASEAN Chair in 2014.

ASEAN leaders approved three joint statements on ASEAN Community in a Global Community of Nations, establishment of the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, and strengthening cooperation in preventing human trafficking in Southeast Asia. The host Indonesia issued the Chair’s Statement of the ASEAN Summit on its main results.

On the occasion, ASEAN leaders also held meetings with representatives from the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Agency (AIPA), the ASEAN Youth and civil society organizations to encourage these organizations to contribute to building the ASEAN Community.

VOV: Could you tell us about Vietnam’s contributions to the success of the summit?

Mr Minh: The Vietnamese delegation led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the summit with a motto of activeness and responsibility to carry out the 11th National Party Congress’s spirit of pursuing the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, cooperation and development, diversification and multi-lateralisation, and actively taking part in the process of international integration to promote the achievements gained during the country’s 2010 ASEAN Chairmanship year.

Accordingly, Vietnam will work with other countries to effectively implement a roadmap to build the ASEAN Community by 2015.  PM Dung proposed enhancing ASEAN cooperation by virtue of “action” and “enforcement” in carrying out a roadmap to build the community based on the three pillars of politics-security, economics and socio-culture; strengthening coordination and supervision in implementing plans to build the community at both national and regional levels; and emphasizing the importance of bridging the development gap among regional countries to create a firm foundation for ASEAN connectivity roadmap.

Vietnam and other ASEAN countries discussed measures to foster cooperation between ASEAN and its partners and to create favourable conditions for partners to promote regional cooperation, contribute to maintaining peace, stability, security and development in the region and help ASEAN build its community and effectively deal with challenges facing the region, such as marine safety, natural disaster management and climate change.

PM Dung said that further cooperation in coping with climate change and boosting sustainable development, especially through the reasonable and sustainable exploitation and use of water resources, are important issues related to the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) cooperation.

He said that the exploitation and use of Mekong River water resources, particularly the building of works on the main stream of the Mekong River, should firstly ensure residents’ interests and the sustainable development of all riverside countries, especially in the lower areas. This requires close cooperation between five ASEAN countries and China, Mr Dung stressed.

Inheriting achievements gained during the country’s 2010 ASEAN Chairmanship year, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries stressed the importance of enhancing inner-bloc cooperation, fostering dialogues and cooperation with China to fully and effectively realise the Declaration on Conducts of the Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and complete the building of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in 2012 on the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the DOC to ensure peace, stability and security in the East Sea.

ASEAN leaders discussed the implementation of the 5^th East Asia Summit (EAS)’s decision to invite Russian and US leaders to attend the 6^th EAS.

PM Dung also had separate meetings with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Filipino President Benigno Aquino, Myanmar President Thein Sien, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva and Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong, to discuss bilateral cooperation in solving other regional and international affairs of mutual concern.

They all praised Vietnam’s contribution to the success of the summit and its achievements gained during its 2010 ASEAN Chairmanship year.

Earlier, the foreign ministers and ministers in charge of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Council met to prepare for the summit. The Vietnamese delegation headed by Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh actively contributed to preparing programmes and documents for the summit.

VOV: Thank you very much. – VOV

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