COUNTER-TERRORISM HIGH ON ASEAN AGENDA
Southeast Asian foreign ministers are expected to extensively discuss terrorism and violent extremism during this year’s Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.
“Definitely, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism is high on the agenda of Asean and we expect the ministers to have a fairly extensive discussion on the topic,” DFA spokesperson Robespierre Bolivar said at a Palace briefing yesterday.
Asean refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional grouping of 10 countries in Southeast Asia.
Foreign ministers and senior officials from 27 countries will gather in Manila for the 50th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and Related Meetings at the Philippine International Convention Center starting today until August 8.
As chair, the Philippines has been very active in pushing for a united front in fighting terror and extremism, Bolivar said.
He said that under the auspices of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) last February, the Philippines and the European Union co-chaired a workshop on mainstreaming moves to counter violent extremism in Brussels.
“That’s part of the commitment of the Philippines to find a way for ARF and Asean as well to cooperate in addressing violent extremism and terrorism. And we also have a very active intercessional meeting on counter-terrorism and transnational crime in ARF,” Bolivar said.
“And we expect these intercessional meetings to report to the ministers the outcomes of their activities for the last year. And also, we expect the ministers to approve activities that are planned for the next intercessional year, so from August to the next year,” he added.
The meetings bring together the foreign ministers of Asean Plus Three, namely, China, Japan and Korea.
Asean is composed of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.