Leaders of ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) are set to convene a teleconferenced dialogue on June 26, during which they will show their commitment to further enhancing solidarity within the bloc and its relations with partners to cope with the challenges and build a sustainable community.

AIPA Secretary-General Nguyen Tuong Van (L) grants an interview
to a Vietnam News Agency correspondent in Jakarta (Photo: VNA) 

The dialogue will take place within the framework of the 36th ASEAN Summit.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency, AIPA Secretary-General Nguyen Tuong Van noted that the annual dialogue, first held in 2009, demonstrates ASEAN and AIPA leaders’ pledge to strengthen cooperation between the bloc’s executive and legislative bodies in resolving common issues of concern in the region.

She said that, at the upcoming event, ASEAN Chair Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, AIPA Chair National Assembly (NA) Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and leaders from other ASEAN governments and parliaments will confirm their commitment to continuing to enhance the bloc’s solidarity and unanimity, highlight ASEAN’s centrality, and further strengthen its relations with partners to jointly deal with COVID-19 and other increasingly fierce challenges, including strategic competition among superpowers along with traditional and non-traditional security issues in the region.

The AIPA Chair is expected to emphasise its readiness to stand side-by-side with ASEAN in building a sustainable community that is peaceful, stable, based on law, and united, and that centres on people for common development.

During that process, AIPA and member parliaments have been contributing to the building of an “ASEAN common house”, promoting legal harmonisation, and increasing supervision over the implementation of commitments, ASEAN Community blueprints, and the bloc’s cooperation policies, according to Van.

She also said that Vietnam’s concurrent roles as ASEAN Chair, Chair of the 41st AIPA General Assembly, and non-permanent member of the UN Security Council confirm the country’s growing stature in the region and the world.

Aside from the opportunities, the increasingly fierce challenges facing the ASEAN Community also put great pressure on the host Vietnam, she added.

Taking COVID-19 as an example, Van noted that, as AIPA Chair, the Vietnamese NA took timely and active measures to join hands with other member parliaments to cope with its spread.

Chairwoman Ngan sent a letter to AIPA members calling for joint efforts to fight the pandemic. The NA also chaired and took part in online regional meetings to discuss response measures and share experience via phone talks, and provided some AIPA members and other countries with medical supplies.

With the support of the International Conservation Caucus Foundation, the NA recently hosted an online meeting with AIPA parliamentarians to look into the illegal wildlife trade, its connections with COVID-19, and ways to prevent future pandemics.

Van said Vietnam’s successes in pandemic control and economic recovery in the year it serves as Chair of both ASEAN and AIPA have been recognised by the international community and ASEAN countries