CPV: The ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) was held in Da Nang, on 12th-13th January 2010 under the chairship of Vietnam’s ASEAN SOM Leader, Assistant Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh.

The SOM discussed preparations for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat, the 3rd ASEAN Political Security Council (APSC) Meeting, and the Special ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) Meeting to be held here on 13-14 January, and other issues under their purview.

 

Giving their final touch to preparatory efforts for the three ASEAN ministerial meetings, the ASEAN Senior Officials reviewed the tentative programme, provisional agenda, outcome documents as well as deliverables of those meetings. For the AMM Retreat, the SOM agreed on the Indicative list of topics for discussions by the Foreign Ministers which is grouped into two broad clusters of issues ASEAN Community Building and ASEAN’s External Relations. For the 3rd APSC Council Meeting, the Ministers are recommended to focus their discussions on developments in sectoral bodies under the APSC Council and Follow-up to the Second Meeting of the APSC Council and Implementation of the APSC Blueprint. The Special ACC Meeting shall merely look at the documents and recommendations to be submitted by the Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR).

 

During the Meeting, Vietnam informed the SOM that preparations for the AMM Retreat and other ministerial meetings in Da Nang have been well in place, and briefed the ASEAN SOM of the arrangements made for the first-time ever Air and Road Trip by ASEAN Foreign Ministers from Thailand, en route Laos to Vietnam (in Lao Bao border gate) for their meetings in Da Nang.

 

The SOM also discussed several issues with regard to ASEAN’s internal and external cooperation for recommendation to the Foreign Ministers. They deliberated and finalised the Terms of Reference for the High Level Task Force on ASEAN Connectivity and the APSC Communication Plan. They also discussed issues relating to ASEAN’s Relations with external partners, and ASEAN’s response to the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change etc.

 

The SOM agreed that their next meeting shall be held in March, in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

 (CPV)