The annual Meeting of the Commission for the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) was held yesterday in the Cambodian capital city of Phnompenh. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh attended the event, which was convened on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM). At the meeting, regional top diplomats reviewed the implementation of the Plan of Action to strengthen the Treaty over the past 5 years. ASEAN Foreign Ministers applauded major outcomes in the four key areas, including the finalization of negotiations with recognised nuclear-weapon states on their participation in the Protocol of the Treaty, the enhancement of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, integration of nuclear safety into cooperation between ASEAN and its partners such as Russia, the US and Japan as well as a number of other nuclear free zones across the world, and the promotion of ASEAN’s role and contributions at multilateral nuclear security and safety forums.

The ASEAN ministers agreed on the need for ASEAN member countries to uphold the zone’s values and other cooperative tools such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), to further contribute to ASEAN’s common goals of peace, security, stability, cooperation, and development in the region.

The same day, ASEAN ministers met with representatives of ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Committee on Human Rights (AICHR). At the meeting, ministers highly praised past efforts and achievements of the committee to foster regional cooperation on human rights, especially the compilation of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. They agreed that it’s necessary for the committee to speed up cooperative activities to complete the construction of the ASEAN Community by 2015. The ministers also discussed implementation of the ASEAN Charter and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.

The unofficial ASEAN-China Senior Officials’ Meeting took place the same day in preparation for the ASEAN-China Ministers’ Meeting scheduled for this Thursday. As ASEAN has basically completed the Code of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea as a foundation for discussions with China, delegates to the ASEAN-China SOM agreed to urge foreign ministers on both sides to begin ASEAN-China DOC negotiations soon.