`Foreign Ministers of ASEAN countries will consider a number of proposals to establish relations from a number of new partners in this week’s Conference,` said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam Nguyen Quoc Dung, Head of SOM ASEAN Vietnam,

According to Mr. Dung, as the role and position of ASEAN is increasing, the Association has received many requests to establish partnerships at three levels including full dialogue partnerships, partnership partnerships and partnerships.

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung at a press conference on the afternoon of September 7 in Hanoi.

Most recently, ASEAN received requests from the UK for full dialogue partners, from France and Italy for development partners, from Morocco and the UAE for sectoral dialogue partners, and from Cuba and Colombia about requests to join.

According to the process, the ASEAN Secretariat helps ASEAN countries evaluate partners and benefits for both sides when these countries cooperate with the Association.

AMM 53 and related conferences will take place online, with the participation of foreign ministers of ASEAN countries and partners such as the US, Russia, China, Japan, Korea, India, EU,

Deputy Minister Dung said AMM 53 also planned to discuss the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC), when negotiations were stalled due to the impact of Covid-19.

COC is a document that ASEAN negotiated with China since 2002, aiming to build binding rules in the East Sea.

Deputy Minister Dung said ASEAN and China recently had a number of meetings at the working level, but mainly discussed how to resume negotiations without going into detail.

`COC is a priority for ASEAN and China, so the 53rd AMM conference will discuss this issue,` Mr. Dung said.

Mr. Dung said that AMM 53 is one of the most important conference series of ASEAN, held in the context that the regional and world situation continues to be complicated by fierce strategic competition between major countries;

The series of events will have about 20 conferences, including the 27th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial Meeting and the 10th East Asia Summit (EAS). 27 delegations from 4 continents will participate.

Vietnamese-English