ASEAN Regional Forum Officials Meet in Cambodia

2012-05-26   
Xinhua       
Web Editor: Liuyuanhui 

The ASEAN Regional Forum Senior Officials meeting kicked off here on Saturday, discussing ways to enhance cooperation on disaster relief, maritime security, non- proliferation and disarmament, and anti-terrorism and crimes, said a Cambodian senior official.

The one-day meeting, attended by senior officials from 28 countries, was chaired by Kao Kim Hourn, secretary of state at Cambodia's foreign ministry.

"The forum was to exchange views on regional and international issues," Kao Kim Hourn told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting. "We had discussed the progress of the democratization process in Myanmar, the Korea peninsula, and the South China Sea."

According to the forum's agenda, the participants also discussed and adopted the reports on confidence building measures and preventive diplomacy, disaster relief, maritime security, non- proliferation and disarmament, counter-terrorism and transnational crimes and ARF disaster relief exercise 2012.

They also debated on the ARF ongoing initiatives including the ARF work plan on maritime security, draft ARF work plan on non- proliferation and disarmament, draft ARF statement on cooperation in ensuring international information security, draft concept paper on the establishment of the ARF transnational threat information sharing center, draft concept paper on best practices for implementation of a disease surveillance system, and draft concept paper on a workshop on space security for the ARF, as well as draft concept paper on a workshop on seismic monitoring, showed the agenda.

The participating countries included the ASEAN member states, China, Japan, India, Russia, South Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), and the United States.

Chinese delegation was led by Fu Ying, vice minister of Foreign Affairs, and the DPRK's delegation was headed by Ri Jong Ryul, the DPRK's ambassador to ASEAN.

Kao Kim Hourn said the meeting was preparatory for the 19th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial meeting on July 13 in Phnom Penh.