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Asian-Pacific Acts in Harmony to Meet Challenges in New Millenium
The Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) and its dialogue partners have reached extensive consensus on narrowing development gap and cooperation in enhanced dialogues on security matters and challenges arising from globalization.
Representatives of the 10-nation ASEAN��ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)members and ASEAN dialogue partners, who met here this week for consultations on a wide range of issues on politics, security, preventive diplomacy��globalization, and narrowing of the development gap among nations, agreed to make concerted efforts to strengthen ASEAN's role in regional and global affairs.
The participants reaffirmed their commitment to support ASEAN's goal of "building a stable �� united �� integrated and outward-looking ASEAN" and its initiatives to narrow the development gap within ASEAN and the rest of the world.
The 34th ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting�� which was held in Hanoi on July 23-24�� adopted the Hanoi Declaration that put forth concrete measures to accelerate economic integration and help less developed ASEAN members in a bid to seek "dynamic and sustained growth of the region."
"The benefits of globalization are at present unevenly distributed and that the development gap among nations and regions would be further widened without effective measures to address the negative impact of globalization�� " the ministers said.
They renewed the call for the development of the region through sub-regional cooperative program in the ASEAN region, especially in the following sectors of infrastructure �� human resources development�� information technology and regional economic integration.
The adoption of the Hanoi Declaration on Narrowing Development Gap is aimed at eliminating poverty and disparities in economic development among the association to achieve common growth and prosperity of the regional group.
In order to demonstrate itself as an outward-looking regional group, ASEAN has worked hard to increase its links and strengthened dialogues with countries from other regions on political and security issues.
ASEAN expanded its consultation coordination with major powers in the region��including China��Russia��Japan and the United States��on regional and global concerns that may have an impact on regional peace and stability.
It put in place a mechanism of regular dialogue with major countries in the Asia-Pacific region by setting up the annual regional forum on major regional and world issues in July 1994 in Bangkok �� Thailand.
The Eighth ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) for this year��which ended here Wednesday�� has achieved practical and important results following broad discussions on a number of hot issues��including 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.
As part of the concrete and major achievements scored during the ARF meeting �� participating ministers endorsed the Paper on Concepts and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy�� the Terms of Reference for the ARF Experts/Eminent Persons Register and the Paper on the Enhanced Role of the ARF Chair the three documents asserting the growing role of ASEAN in regional and world affairs.
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said in a speech delivered to the ARF meeting that substantive progress has been achieved this year.
"All sides have in the main reached consensus on the three documents��which signifies an important achievement in the transitional process as the Forum moves from confidence-building measures to preventive diplomacy��" Tang said.
He added that China is willing to play an active role in dialogue and cooperation on non-traditional security issues�� which have become a growing concern of all sides�� such as drug- trafficking��smuggling and illegal immigration.
As for security issues��the participants agreed to increase understanding of the scope and mechanisms of preventive diplomacy. They called for joint efforts to enhance trust and confidence- building among nations as the first step toward preventive diplomacy.
"Peace and stability are always the pre-requisite for the development of each country �� each region and the whole world��" Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien of Vietnam �� the host nation of a series of ASEAN conferences this year �� told a press conference Friday at the end of the Post Ministerial Conferences that included a series of multilateral and bilateral forum meetings.
Those meetings�� which lasted about a week in Hanoi �� were attended by ASEAN foreign ministers and its dialogue partners��such as China �� Russia�� the United States�� Japan and Australia�� the major states in the Asia-Pacific region.
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