India fully supports a strong, unified & prosperous ASEAN: Jaishankar

New Delhi, June 16: In a huge milestone, India is hosting the Special ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (SAIFMM) to mark 30 years of our dialogue relations & 10 years of our Strategic Partnership.

 

 

Addressing the event, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said that India fully supports a strong, unified and prosperous ASEAN, the one whose centrality of the Indo pacific is fully recognised. He also highlighted that ASEAN has stood tall as a beacon of regionalism, multilateralism and globalisation.

 

 

"ASEAN has always stood tall as a beacon of regionalism, multilateralism and globalisation. It has successfully carved out a niche for itself in the region and provided a foundation for the evolving strategic and economic architecture in the Indo-Pacific," he said.

 

 

Further, he said, "ASEAN's role today is perhaps more important than ever before, given the geopolitical challenges and uncertainties that the world faces. India fully supports a strong, unified and prosperous ASEAN, one whose centrality in Indo-Pacific is fully recognized. The strong convergence of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) and the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) is the testimony to our shared vision for the region."

 

Vivian Balakrishnan, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Singapore, India's Country Coordinator, is co-chairing the meeting. "A better-connected India and ASEAN would be well-positioned to promote decentralized globalisation and resilient and reliable supply chains that are needed by the international community. It's important that we identify a new set of priorities while ensuring the early realisation of our ongoing initiatives," Jaishankar said further.