ASEAN needs to maintain solidarity, strengthen coordination as well as
play a key role in dealing with regional challenges, Vietnamese Foreign
Minister Pham Binh Minh has said.
In his speech at the 45
th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which took place in Phnom Penh,
Cambodia on July 9, Minh also stated that the group should bring
into full play its role and push up the building of a regional
architecture in order to make effective contributions to the common
goals of peace, stability and cooperation.
Regarding external
relations, he stressed that ASEAN should further deepen relations with
its partners and encourage them to contribute to regional cooperation.
In the future, the group should uphold its core role in regional processes, Minh added.
Regarding the East Sea, Minister Minh expressed his deep concern over
the recent complicated situation in the East Sea, stressing the
Vietnamese Government’s stance of opposing China’s approval of the
establishment of the so-called “Sansha city” and its invitation for
international bidding of the nine oil and gas lots which are located
completely within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental
shelf under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Those activities seriously violated the sovereign right and the
jurisdictional right of the coastal nations over exclusive economic
zones and continental shelves in accordance with provisions of the 1982
UNCLOS, and ran counter to the spirit of the Declaration on the Conducts
of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), Minh said.
He also
stressed the principles of respecting the sovereign right and the
jurisdictional right of the coastal nations over exclusive economic
zones and continental shelves in line with provisions of the UNCLOS,
solving disputes through peaceful measures without the use of force and
with respect to the international law, particularly the 1982 UNCLOS and
the spirit of the DOC.
ASEAN should demonstrate its
leading role, responsibility and constructive spirit in solving matters
relating to the common interest of the region, creating favourable
environment for the parties concerned to peacefully settle the disputes,
he said.-VNA