A
Vietnamese delegation participated in the Senior Officials Meetings (SOM) of
ASEAN, ASEAN+3, East Asia Summit (EAS) and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), in
Surabaya, Indonesia from June 7-10.

Speaking at the meetings, the head of the Vietnamese
delegation, Pham Quang Vinh, Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and
head of SOM ASEAN Vietnam, highly valued ASEAN efforts in building the
Community and expanding cooperation with partners, as well as promoting its
central role in boosting cooperation for peace, stability, development and
effective response to challenges posed to the region.

Regarding the East Sea issue, Vinh stressed that peace, stability,
maritime security and safety in the East
Sea are a common concern
and interest of all countries and the whole region and all nations should
continue joining hands for these objectives.

He said that Vietnam supports efforts to strengthen
confidence building and cooperation for peace, stability, maritime security and
safety in the East Sea, to further promote existing regional tools and
mechanisms such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the Declaration
on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and the ARF, to realise commitments
in the ASEAN-China Action Plan for the 2011-2015 period approved at the
ASEAN-China Summit in October, 2010 on the respect for and full and effective
implementation of the DOC, and the early organisation of the ASEAN-China senior
officials meeting on the DOC implementation.

However, the region continued to witness complex
developments and cases, causing instability in the East Sea.
The most worrying and serious was a series of cases recently. On May 26,
Vietnamese ship Binh Minh 02’s survey cables were cut by Chinese marine
surveillance vessels when it was operating totally within the 200-nautical mile
continental shelf and exclusive economic zone of Vietnam.

A similar case happened on June 9 when a Chinese fishing
boat, supported by two Chinese fishery administration vessels, deliberately hit
the survey cables of Viking II, a ship hired by the Vietnam National Oil and
Gas Group, when it was conducting seismic surveys in Vietnam’s exclusive
economic zone and continental shelf.

“Vietnam
strongly opposes these acts, which make the East Sea
situation more unstable and seek to turn a undisputed area into ‘a disputed
area’, raising worries for not only concerned parties but also all countries as
well as for peace, stability, maritime security and safety in the region in
general,” he said.

Vietnam
also strongly affirms the principle of respecting international laws and
national sovereignty, resolutely demanding prevention of recurrence of such
cases and at the same time keeps the policy to continue dialogue and solve
disputes through peaceful measures, he said.

The Vietnamese diplomat emphasised the need to further
strengthen regional legal institutions, adding that all parties should strictly
abide by basic principles of international law, the 1982 UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982) and the DOC, address disputes through peaceful
solutions, restrain themselves and refrain from action that complicates the
situation.

“This is a matter of decisive significance for peace,
stability, maritime security and safety in the East Sea,”
he said.

According to Vinh, the 18th ASEAN Summit affirmed the
importance of the DOC for peace, stability, maritime security and safety in the
East Sea
and came to a decision that ASEAN would strive to promptly complete rules
guiding the implementation of the DOC and speed up consultation on the building
of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the East
Sea.

ASEAN suggested China work together with ASEAN, in
the spirit of constructiveness, openness and sincerity, to address existing
problems in order to promptly complete rules guiding the implementation of the
DOC, he said.

ASEAN Senior Officials Meetings further emphasised efforts
to build an ASEAN Community by 2015, promote regional connectivity and
strengthen relations with partner countries. Participants called on ASEAN to
play a stronger central role in determining regional structure and orientation
and promote cooperation for peace, stability and development in the region.
They called for effective solutions to emerging challenges in both traditional
and non-traditional security problems, ranging from natural disasters to
climate change, epidemics, cooking and energy security, marine security and safety
and transnational crime.

Partner countries retained their support for ASEAN in
building an ASEAN Community and highlighted the grouping’s central role in the
region.

At the SOM meetings of ASEAN+3 and EAS, participants hailed
the recent progress made in implementing the programmes of action set by
ASEAN+3 and EAS for the 2003-12 period. They also expressed satisfaction at the
implementation of five areas prioritised by EAS, namely finance, energy,
education, natural disaster control and epidemic control. They also welcomed
Russian and US leaders’ attendance in the EAS in November.

At the ARF SOM, delegates came out with the approval on a
number of practical measures to deploy the Hanoi Plan of Action aimed at
implementing the ARF Vision for 2020.

In these meetings, especially at the ARF, many countries
expressed concerns about the recent complicated developments in the East Sea
. They attached importance to ensuring peace, stability and marine security and
safety and called for peaceful solutions to disputes based on international
law, the UNCLOS 1982 and the DOC.

All these meetings are preparatory steps for the 44th ASEAN
Ministerial Meeting (AMM-44), the 18th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting with Partner
Member Countries (PMC) and the 18th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF-18) scheduled for
the third week of July.

Source: VNA