EAS SHOULD NOT BE REGIONAL SECURITY MECHANISM

BANGKOK, April 11 (Bernama) -– With the inclusion of the United States and
Russia into the East Asia Summit (EAS) later this year, EAS should remain a
broad strategic forum and not be turned into a regional security mechanism.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman told the Special Informal
Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting on EAS, here, that Malaysia felt there should
be no radical change or departure, with regard to the summit's existing
priority areas, format and agenda.

"Any changes to the existing priority areas, format and agenda of the EAS
should be in tandem with the objectives, principles and basic modalities as
outlined in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the EAS," he told Bernama after
attending the meeting.

Malaysia stated that while it was open to suggestions on ways to pursue this
objective, it was of the view that Asean should be guided by such objectives,
he said.

He said Malaysia believed that Asean should start defining geopolitical
issues
in the region, which should be addressed at the EAS in parallel with the
existing five priority areas which were mainly functional.

The five priority areas are finance, education, energy, disaster
mitigation and
avian influenza.

Malaysia, Anifah said, was of the view that Asean needed to ensure that the
proposed new areas of cooperation did not duplicate the existing work in other
Asean-led mechanisms, as well as other regional fora.

At the same time, Asean should also study how the inclusion of new areas of
cooperation would impact on the achievement of the five priority areas, he
added.

Anifah said the meeting, in principle, also agreed that Asean could
capitalise
the expanded EAS to further project its profile and contributions in the global
arena.

He said Malaysia was of the view that Asean should take four approaches in
maintaining its global profile in the EAS and other Asean-led mechanism.

The approaches are:

* Asean global profile should not result in Asean being caught in between
competing interests of major powers;

* Asean global profile should serve the common interest of all Asean member
states and their peoples;

* Asean global profile should reflect Asean principles, values and norms;
and,

* Asean global profile should contribute to Asean centrality and help
accelerate Asean Community Building.

In principle, Anifah said, the meeting also agreed that Asean could
capitalise
the expanded EAS to further project its profile and contribution in the global
arena.

Indeed, the inclusion of Russia and the United States was an important
recognition of two major powers towards Asean's roles as the driving force in
the evolving architecture, he said.

The formal entry of the United States and Russia into EAS is scheduled to
take place at the 6th EAS in Bali later this year, with the date proposed at
between Oct 21 and 23.

Apart from the 10 Asean member countries, six other countries –- Australia,
China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – are currently participating
in EAS.

Anifah said, with the inclusion of major powers in the EAS, there was a
possible risk that bilateral dynamics among these major powers would undermine
Asean centrality in the EAS.

As such, there was a need for Asean to find ways and means to safeguard and
manifest its centrality in the process by taking, among others, the following
approaches:

* Asean should define its best interests in the EAS process and develop its
common paradigm for the evolution of the EAS;

* Asean will also have to be proactive in setting an agenda of the EAS,
taking into account the new strategic regional and global landscape; and,

* Asean should continue to speak in one voice in a manner that reinforces
the building of Asean Community building and an Asean-centred regional
architecture.