ASEAN Regional Forum Ends With Enhanced Role in Political, Security CooperationThe Eighth ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ended its daylong annual session Wednesday in Hanoi after adopting three major document aimed at promoting preventive diplomacy and enhancing the ARF role in increasing dialogue on regional political and security cooperation.Nguyen Dy Nien, foreign minister of Vietnam, the host nation, told a press conference that the ARF participants held frank deliberations on political and security-related matters in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large. The adoption of the Paper on Enhanced Role of ARF Chair, the Paper on the ARF Expert/Eminent Persons Register, and the Paper on the Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy is the concrete, substantive and significant achievements of the ARF this year, Nien said. The ARF member countries have also discussed the important role of major powers on peace and stability, the Korean Peninsula, the situation in Indonesia, East Timor, developments in the Middle East, and Africa, he said. "The ministers agreed that confidence-building should continue to be the main thrust of the whole ARF process," Nien said. He asserted that the ARF process is capable of making considerable contributions to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region. The Eighth ARF issued a 27-point Chairman's Statement on a wide range of regional and global issues at the end of its annual session. |
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