ASPC is a high-level forum of the defense cooperation channel in the framework of ARF.
The Vietnamese delegation was led by Senior Lieutenant General Pham Ngoc Minh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army.
ASPC this year comprises of three sessions namely sharing viewpoints on regional and global situations; development of the reserved; and assessment on regional security structure.
Delegates at the 14th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Security Policy Conference. Photo: Vietnam+
At the first discussion session, the participants debated and shared opinions on situations in the regional and the world over the past time. Emerging issues were tensions in the Korean Peninsula, threats from terrorism and disputes in the East Sea (South China Sea).
Addressing this session, Gen. Minh said that peaceful and stable environment has been maintained in the region. However, there appeared fast and complicated developments that pose unpredicted threats, such as developments in the Northeastern Asia, internal situations of some countries, natural disasters, piracy, terrorism, and disputes in the East Sea.
Regarding security challenges that the region is facing, the head delegation of Vietnam emphasized that the complicated East Sea issue makes ASEAN and international community deeply concern. He affirmed Vietnam’s standpoint of addressing East Sea disputes by peaceful means and on the basis of international law as well as respecting legal and diplomatic progress and fully and effectively fulfilling DOC and early completing COC.
The Vietnamese head delegate also stressed that Vietnam shares the same concerns with other countries on the growing terrorism and is willing to closely cooperate with them to effectively tackle this security challenge.
Vietnam highly appreciated ASEAN cooperation in such mechanisms as ADMM, ADMM+, ARF, and EAS as well as ASEAN’s role in boosting regional defense-security cooperation, restraining disputes and building trust, especially since official operation of the ASEAN Community, Gen. Minh said.
He urged countries to bolster bilateral defense ties in a practical manner and consider close bilateral cooperation a foundation to improve effectiveness of multilateral defense-security cooperation.
At the second discussion session, participating countries shared experience in developing the reserved in the context that security is developing unexpectedly, requiring integrated mobilization of all forces to response to. They agreed that the army’s reserve plays an important role.
At the third discussion session, they debated considerations on improving defense-security cooperation mechanism in ARF. They also discussed the improvement of meeting of defense-security dialogue channel in ARF framework and proposed more practical cooperation, enhanced connectivity, cooperation and sharing with other cooperative mechanisms including ADMM+.
Translated by Mai Huong