MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS PRESS STATEMENT
38TH AMM/PMC/12TH ARF
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yeo, will lead the Singapore delegation to the 38th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), the annual Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) and the 12th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Vientiane, Lao People's Democratic Republic from 25 July 2005 to 29 July 2005.
The theme for this year's AMM is "Towards Harmony, Dynamism and Integration of ASEAN." During the AMM, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers will review the progress of ASEAN's activities over the past year and chart new directions for the year ahead. The Ministers will discuss key issues such as the East Asia Summit and the development of an ASEAN Charter. On 27 July, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers will meet their counterparts from the People's Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea at the ASEAN+3 Foreign Ministers Meeting, and will review the progress and discuss the future of ASEAN+3 cooperation at the meeting.
At the PMC on 28 July, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers will meet individually six of their ten Dialogue Partners to exchange views on regional and international issues. These six Dialogue Partners are Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, Russia and the United States. The ASEAN Foreign Ministers will meet the Foreign Ministers of the other four Dialogue Partners, namely China, India, Japan and the Republic of Korea during the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 2005.
On 29 July, the ARF Ministers will exchange views on regional and international developments as well as the future of the ARF. They will also consider the ARF Statement on Information Sharing and Intelligence Exchange and Document Integrity in Enhancing Cooperation to Combat Terrorism and Other Transnational Crime. The Statement encourages the ARF participants to further enhance their efforts to combat terrorism and other transnational crimes through information-sharing and intelligence exchanges, cooperation in combating document fraud and law enforcement cooperation.
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SINGAPORE
22 JULY 2005