ASEAN-Plus Defense Ministers issue Joint Declaration

The 7th ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) takes place virtually on December 10, 2020. Photo: VGP

The defense ministers reaffirmed the principles for friendly and mutually beneficial relations as set in the Declaration of the East Asia Summit on the Principles for Mutually Beneficial Relations.

The ministers agreed to continue enhancing strategic dialogue and promote practical cooperation on regional defense and security issues among ASEAN member States and the plus countries by implementing the ADMM Three-Year Work Programs and the ADMM-Plus Experts’ Working Groups (EWGs) Work Plans.

They also agreed to strengthen defense cooperation to tackle security challenges through the seven ADMM-Plus EWGs while upholding the principles of ASEAN centrality, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, consensus-based decision making, flexible, voluntary, and non-binding contributions with assets remaining under national command and control.

The ministers underlined the need for the ADMM-Plus to put in place practical confidence-building measures, by exercising the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea, implementing the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, to ensure a peaceful environment conducive to sustainable development and prosperity in the region.

The declaration also reaffirmed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, security, stability, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight as well as the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercise of self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation, and pursue peaceful resolution of disputes, without coercion, in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The ADMM-Plus, inaugurated in Ha Noi, Viet Nam in 2010, is an integral part of the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM).

The ADMM-Plus has served as a multilateral defense and security cooperation mechanism for trust and confidence building, and for the plus countries to contribute to ASEAN centrality as well as capacity-building in response to common security threats in the region.

The plus countries are Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States./.

By Kim Anh

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