 Ambassador Vu Ho, acting head of the ASEAN Senior Official Meetings (SOM) delegation of Vietnam (Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs) |
Ho, who is acting head of the ASEAN Senior Official Meetings (SOM) delegation of Vietnam, made the remarks while attending the SOM and the 15th meeting of the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Timor-Leste’s application for ASEAN membership held in Jakarta on Monday.
 Representatives of countries at the ASEAN Senior Officials' Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 6. (Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs) |
Participants discussed and basically agreed on orientations for implementing the bloc’s priorities this year, including promoting growth and recovery, improving institutional capacity and effectiveness of ASEAN, and responding to non-traditional security challenges, especially those related to food security, energy security, cyber security, transnational crimes, healthcare system resilience, and financial and economic stability.
The ASEAN countries underlined the need to maintain the bloc’s solidarity and unity and promote ASEAN’s role in assisting Myanmar to seek a feasible and durable solution to the current crisis, uphold the bloc’s principled stance on the East Sea issue, and show the determination to turn the East Sea into a sea of peace, cooperation, and development.
Also on Monday, the participating countries concurred in continuing to help Timor-Leste improve its capacity to gradually meet the ASEAN membership criteria, and encouraging Timor-Leste to actively engage in the bloc’s existing capacity building programs and activities.
Addressing the meetings, Ambassador Ho called on ASEAN to build a practical and appropriate roadmap to assist Timor-Leste to thoroughly prepare for its admission into the bloc, adding that Vietnam is ready to work with other countries to help Timor-Leste improve the capacity of fulfilling the duties of an ASEAN member.