Cambodia, the ASEAN Chair for 2022, will strengthen the ASEAN Centrality in the ASEAN-led mechanisms in maintaining and upholding peace, security, and prosperity.

H.E. Prak Sokhonn, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, emphasised the stance at a briefing on Cambodia’s ASEAN Chairmanship Priorities 2022, organised here yesterday afternoon.

Cambodia will reinforce multilateralism and multilateral process through ASEAN-led mechanisms and concerted actions that shall remain open, transparent, inclusive, and rules-based, he said.

At the same time, he added, Cambodia will foster mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual interest, and mutual understanding, in accordance with the principles and objectives as laid out in the UN Charter, ASEAN Charter, Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP).

“ASEAN Centrality will be further strengthened in the face of rising anti-globalisation sentiments, unilateralism and protectionism, while promoting the ‘ASEAN Way’, ‘Unity in Diversity’, ‘Caring and Sharing Community’, and the ‘Culture of Peace’,” the Cambodian top diplomat stressed.

Besides, he continued, the ASEAN Chair 2022 will seek to ensure tangibility of benefits for the peoples across the whole region, leaving no one behind, and keep the momentum of ASEAN’s proactive contribution to UN peacekeeping operation by incorporating the ASEAN’s Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda and ASEAN’s Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) agenda, within the frameworks of ASEAN and ASEAN Plus, as well as promote ASEAN’s visibility through the ASEAN Regional Mine Action Centre (ARMAC) in addressing the humanitarian aspects of the issues of landmines and the explosive remnants of war (ERW) in the region and the world at large.

ASEAN is also committed to reenergising and expanding partnerships with external partners, in order to maintain regional peace, stability and enhance the ASEAN Community building efforts, H.E. Prak Sokhonn underlined.

For the South China Sea issue, he laid stress on the need for an early conclusion of a substantive and effective Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC), and hoped to achieve sufficient momentum to finalise this important document by the end of this year.

Different activities will be conducted to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), the Cambodian DPM said.

The ASEAN’s Theme for 2022 is “ASEAN A.C.T.: Addressing Challenges Together”.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press