In his speech, Viet commended Laos for its chairmanship role and expressed support for the theme and priorities of ASEAN this year. He said ASEAN's resilience lies in its ability to maintain unity, centrality, strategic autonomy and capacity to respond to shifts in the global and regional landscapes.
Underscoring the importance of ASEAN connectivity, Viet highlighted a community-wide approach, the expansion of agenda connectivity in the fields of sustainable infrastructure, electricity networks, electric vehicle ecosystem, cross-border payment, and supply chain resilience. He also highlighted the need to align sub-regional cooperation with ASEAN's overall progress to help sub-regions optimise their development potential and leverage new growth drivers.
In its relations with partners, the bloc should request countries to respect its central role both in words and actions, ensuring effective and meaningful cooperation, he said. Viet reaffirmed ASEAN's principled stance on global and regional issues, and laid stress on the necessity of adhering to and fully and effectively implementing all provisions of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea/South China Sea (DOC), and at the same time creating an environment conducive to negotiations on a quality, substantive and effective Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) in line with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (UNCLOS).
At the meeting, heads of delegations discussed ways to further deepen ASEAN’s relationship with partners, bolster cooperation in traditional areas while expanding into new potential ones. They also underlined the importance of maintaining an open, transparent, inclusive, rules-based regional structure with ASEAN at its core.
ASEAN foreign ministers' meetings with partner countries under the ASEAN 1 framework will continue on July 26.
