This is the first meeting of EAS ambassadors in Brunei's ASEAN Chairmanship Year 2021. The meeting aims to assess cooperation within the EAS framework, and discuss global national and regional situation as well as preparation for ministerial-level and high-level EAS meetings in August and October.
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Vietnam attends EAS Ambassadors' virtual meeting. (Photo: the Vietnamese permanent mission to ASEAN) |
The meeting acknowledged positive results of cooperation activities to implement action lines in the Manila Plan of Action in 2018-2022.
Participants from EAS member countries shared experiences and efforts in preventing the COVID-19 pandemic, while affirming their commitment to cooperate, support and promote COVID-19 vaccination worldwide.
Participants discussed and gave assessments of international and regional situations, including the Myanmar situation, the denuclearization on the Korean peninsula and the East Sea (South China Sea) issue.
Representatives of ASEAN’s partner countries affirmed their support for ASEAN and its central role in solving regional issues, contributing to maintaining regional peace, stability and security.
Regarding negotiations on a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC), participants want ASEAN and China to build an effective and substantive COC in accordance with international law, including the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).
They also emphasized the importance of self-restraint, non-militarization, peaceful settlement of disputes on the basis of international law and the 1982 UNCLOS.
Established in 2005, the EAS comprises 18 member countries, including 10 ASEAN countries and eight ASEAN’s partner countries (Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the US). The EAMJ 2021 was carried out on the basis of the EAS Declaration in 2015 with the aim of monitoring and promoting the implementation of decisions of the EAS’s member countries cooperation activities in the framework of the Manila Plan of Action.
Source: VNA