ASEAN senior officials have basically completed the agendas and important documents for the 47th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM-47) and ASEAN foreign ministers’ meetings with partners.

The officials, including Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh, gathered in Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw on August 5-7 to prepare for these events.

Among major issues to be discussed at the AMM-47 will be ASEAN’s high determination and efforts to successfully build the ASEAN Community by 2015 and its strategic orientations to push the community forward beyond 2015.

ASEAN will strengthen solidarity and promote its central role and activeness in an evolving regional architecture, ensuring an environment of peace, stability and security in the region, while building and sharing standards of conduct and values of politics-security cooperation tools in the region, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+)

The bloc will also continue enhancing its capacity to effectively cope with emerging security challenges, while encouraging partners to contribute to maintaining and promoting peace, security and cooperation in the region and help ASEAN strengthen regional connectivity.

Underscoring the importance of peace, stability, maritime security, safety and freedom of navigation in the East Sea, ASEAN and its partners have expressed deep concern about recent developments in the sea and urged all parties to strictly abide by international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

They stressed the need for measures to ensure the full and effective implementation of the DOC, towards the early conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

The parties concerned should solve disputes through peaceful means, exercise restraint, and not use or threaten to use force, they said.

During the AMM-47, the ministers will approve a joint communiqué on the outcomes of the meeting. Myanmar, as ASEAN Chair, will release statements of the Chair on ASEAN foreign ministers’ meetings with partners and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

As scheduled, the AMM-47, the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference Plus One (PMC+1), the 15th ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (ASEAN+3), the fourth East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (EAS FMM-4), and the 21st ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF-21) and related meetings will take place in Nay Pyi Taw from August 8-10.-VNA