Hillary Clinton to participate in ASEAN meetings in Thailand

BANGKOK, July 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has confirmed her participation in the forthcoming ASEAN meetings in Thailand starting from Friday, Vitavas Srivihok, Thai Foreign Ministry's Director-General of the ASEAN Affairs Department disclosed on Wednesday.

Also, foreign ministers from 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries and from the dialogue partner countries have confirmed their participation in the meetings, he said.

Thailand is going to host the 42nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) and 16th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in the southern province of Phuket from July 17 to 23.

　The U.S. Secretary of State will attend the meeting as a dialogue partner of the group and also take part in the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting.

The U.S. is scheduled to sign instruments of accession and extension to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in the Southeast Asian region.

The TAC, which is established by the founding members of the ASEAN member countries, is a peace treaty.

Also, on July 23, Clinton is scheduled to meet with her counterparts from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, he said.

"The U.S. now gives more importance to Asia and the ASEAN in particular. So during the meetings the U.S. requests Thailand as the host country to facilitate the meeting between the U.S. and the four countries," said the Director-General of the Thai ASEAN Affairs Department.

The meeting will discuss about soft issues concerning transnational human development, including regional crimes, environments, resource management and water management as they are going to exchange the best practices on how to manage these, he said.

"This is the gesture of the U.S. and the first time that they (the U.S.) will meet with these four countries. So no any sensitive issue will be discussed. They should start with the positive side -- the cooperative side," said Vitavas.

The outcome of this meeting will be the issuance of the chairman statement, he said.

Editor: Fang Yang