Russian Foreign Ministry stresses role of coming asean forum on security issues

The Russian Foreign Ministry stresses the importance of the coming ninth Regional forum session of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations /ASEAN/ on security matters.

Today this forum is a unique and only mechanism of the intergovernmental dialogue on key life aspects of the Asian-Pacific region people, said Alexander Yakovenko, an official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Russia's Minister for Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov will also participate in the session, which will be held in Brunei, July 30-August 1, Yakovenko said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's official representative recalled that besides ASEAN member-countries the Forum also gathered such countries as the USA, Russia, Japan, China, the republic of Korea as well as the European Union. The Forum agenda embraces a wide range of issues, beginning with the forms and methods of combating concrete threats like terrorism, piracy, drug smuggling, organised crime to problems of securing common regional stability and development. Non-regional and supraregional issues such as the Middle East conflict, the problem of arms restriction and others are also on the agenda of the Forum.

Yakovenko pointed that the meaning and the role of the Forum in the regional matters were growing. Thus, hard work on formation of confidence measures and implementation of preventive diplomacy methods in the Asia-Pacific region is being conducted in the framework of the Forum.

Antiterrorism will be a key issue of the Forum. The Brunei session, which will be the ninth consecutive one, will see the Declaration on Financial Measures of Combating Terrorism and a set of antiterrorist recommendations for the Forum participants.

The Brunei meeting will be a big step towards improvement of common regional cooperation in combating terrorism, further increase of the Forum importance in the framework of the emerging international antiterrorist coalition, Yakovenko stated.

Russia, in its turn, will make a tangible contribution into the Forum strengthening. Moscow is taking an active part in fulfilling the above-mentioned conception and the principles of preventive diplomacy, Yakovenko said.

Moreover, together with ASEAN Russia is preparing a draft Declaration on leading principles of cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region "Pacific Accord" - a so-called common regional code of behavior, which will help separate countries consolidate their efforts in counteracting the current security threats.