(VOVworld) – The 24^th ASEAN Summit opened in Nay Pyi Taw capital city of Myanmar on Sunday. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and senior leaders of other ASEAN countries attended the event. In his opening speech, Myanmar President Thein Sein, who is also Chairman of the 2014 ASEAN Summit, emphasized that solidarity and high consensus is the power helping ASEAN to successfully build an ASEAN Community of peace and prosperity by 2015. President Thein Sein said that ASEAN needed to work out a roadmap with clear orientations for an ASEAN Community before 2015 to adapt to global changes. The roadmap should focus on changes in the political environment and social and cultural developments of the region and the world. The Myanmar President urged ASEAN to contribute further to the world’s peace and prosperity through collective efforts and consensus over common interests and concerns about global issues.

At sessions of the summit, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and leaders of other ASEAN countries discussed the acceleration of the building of an ASEAN Community and its development orientation in post 2015, the expansion of foreign relations and ASEAN’s central role in the regional structure and regional and global issues of mutual concerns. The leaders agreed that in face of complications, ASEAN needs to strengthen unity, bring into play the bloc’s central role and responsibility in ensuring a peaceful environment, security, stability and development in the region, and effectively deal with challenges. Leaders of ASEAN countries expressed their deep concerns about the situation in the East Sea which has worsened and impacted peace, stability, security, safety and freedom of navigation in the East Sea. They stressed the need to resolutely abide by international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which stipulate that disputes must be resolved with peaceful means without resorting to threat or use of force. They emphasized the importance of fully implementing the Declaration on the Conducts of Parties in the East Sea and the early establishment of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea.