PANO - A Vietnamese military high-ranking delegation, led by Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Deputy Minister of National Defence, participated in the ASEAN Defence Senior Officials' Meeting (ADSOM) and the ASEAN Defence Senior Officials' Meeting-Plus (ADSOM+) in Myanmar from April 28th.

Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh (C) attended the fourth ADSOM in Hanoi. Photo: CPV

The two annual events are under the frameworks of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM+), respectively.

During the ADSOM, delegates from ASEAN member countries will review their cooperation in the 2011-2013 period and the implementation of their cooperation initiatives, and discuss three major papers, including the Draft on ADMM Three-Year-Work Program 2014-2016, the Concept Paper on Establishing a Direct Communications Link in the ADMM Process initiated by Brunei Darussalam, and the draft joint statement of ADMM-8 “Defence Cooperation towards Peaceful and Prosperous ASEAN Community” before submitting to the ADMM-8.

Besides, they consider a Japanese proposal to hold an ASEAN-Japan Defense Minister Roundtable Discussion.

As the ADMM+ will not be held this year, defence senior officials from the ADMM+ member countries are authorized to exchange and carry out their cooperation fields.

Heads of delegations participating in the ADSOM will exchange national defence and security issues in the region and the world. They will also review activities of Working Groups in the 2011-2013 period and set out plans for the 2014-2017 period.

Apart from five priority areas of cooperation endorsed at the first ADMM+, namely humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military medicine, maritime security, peacekeeping and counter-terrorism, the ADMM+ set up the humanitarian mine action program, initiated by Vietnam and approved at the second ADMM+. Accordingly, Vietnam and India, the first co-chairs of the Experts Working Group (EWG) on Humanitarian Mine Action, will present an operation program for the group to the delegates for approval.

Heads of delegations took a photo at ADSOM in Brunei in 2013

The ADSOM+ includes senior defence officials from 10 ASEAN member nations and eight dialogue partners, including China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, the US, Russia, Australia and New Zealand.

Vietnam has been actively and proactively joining defence cooperation areas under the ADMM and ADMM+ frameworks.

In 2010, the country called for more support to establish ADMM+ and successfully organized the first ADMM+ in Hanoi.

In December 2010, Vietnam hosted the first ADSOM+ Working Group (WG) Meeting, clarifying the implementation and procedures for the establishment of EWGs.

In 2011, Vietnam worked with other ASEAN member nations to establish five EWGs of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), military medicine (MM), maritime security (MS), peacekeeping operations (PKO) and counter-terrorism (CT).

Vietnam registered to join the five groups and co-chairs with China the EWG of HADR.

Last year, Vietnam initiated the establishment of the ADMM+ EWG of Humanitarian Mine Action.

Translated by Van Hieu