Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has urged ASEAN member states to further strengthen intra-bloc solidarity and cohesion, and enhance resilience in the face of challenges in the region and the world.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh chairs
the virtual 21st ASEAN Political-Security Community Council Meeting on June 24.
(Photo: VNA) 

Minh made the statement while chairing the virtual 21st ASEAN Political-Security Community Council Meeting on June 24, which was attended by foreign ministers from the ten ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Secretary General.

The meeting aimed to review the progress of the ASEAN Political - Security Community Blueprint 2025 and discuss ways to beef up political and security cooperation among member states in the time to come.

The ASEAN must always be consistent in awareness and action, maintain a common voice, and promote the observance of law in the region, he said.

Against a backdrop of rising strategic competition between global powerhouses, the bloc needs to maintain its centrality and at the same time improve existing cooperation mechanisms and processes to continue securing the engagement of and contributions from partners, Minh added.

The Deputy PM went on to emphasise the importance of adopting a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to effectively address increasingly complex security challenges.

He called on ASEAN member states to improve the quality of the implementation of the ASEAN Political - Security Community Blueprint 2025 in order to make it contribute practically to regional peace and security and benefit the people.

At the event, the ministers agreed that cooperation among ASEAN nations have been accelerated in various areas, including defence, counter-terrorism and fighting transnational crime, border management, anti-drug trafficking, trust building and preventive diplomacy.

They shared a common view that ASEAN’s cooperation mechanism has played a significant role in strengthening concerted relief efforts to prevent the COVID-19 from spreading further.

The ministers also held that the ASEAN is facing a range of complicated security challenges, including growing tensions in hotspots such as the East Sea, the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East, as well as emerging non-traditional security challenges such as health security, water security and cyber security.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups 10 member states, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.