All ten ASEAN member states agreed to speed up the implementation of action plans so as to complete the remaining 20 percent of the tasks required to formally establish the ASEAN Community at the end of this year during the just-closed ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) Retreat, stated Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

The ministers reached a consensus on exerting each country’s efforts in joint cooperation towards the community formation and in completing a blueprint of the ASEAN Vision after 2015, the Deputy PM told Vietnam News Agency reporters in an exclusive interview on the AMM retreat held in Malaysia on January 28.

They also discussed how to enhance the bloc’s central role in cooperation mechanisms with its partners, and build a peaceful and stable environment in the region.

For the East Sea issue, the ministers agreed to intensify efforts to ensure the effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and accelerate the formulation of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) so as to achieve a specific result in 2015.

Regarding Vietnam’s contributions to the retreat’s outcomes, Deputy PM Minh affirmed that Vietnam, as an active member in ASEAN, made proposals to boost the 10 member states’ commitments to implementing action plans to achieve the formation of the community.

The country also suggested ways to deepen ASEAN’s ties with its partners and enhance its central role in the cooperation mechanisms and shared opinions on issues relating to peace and stability in the region, including the East Sea issue, he added.

Talking about the country’s priorities in 2015 – the year marks two decades since Vietnam joined the bloc, he reiterated that Vietnam will make every effort to contribute actively and effectively to bettering the ASEAN mechanism, tightening the group’s relationship with its partners and ensuring regional peace and stability in order to create a politically-strong, economically-linked and socially-responsible ASEAN Community.

VNA