Inaugural ASEAN-Plus Defence Ministers’ Meeting

To advance Australia’s defence engage­ment in and with the Asia-Pacif­ic, I will vis­it Hanoi from Mon­day 11 to Wednes­day 13 Octo­ber to attend the inau­gur­al ASEAN-Plus Defence Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing (ADMM+).

The ADMM+ brings togeth­er Defence Min­is­ters from the 10 ASEAN nations plus Aus­tralia, Chi­na, India, Japan, New Zealand, Repub­lic of Korea, Rus­sia, and the Unit­ed States. After this year’s first meet­ing, it will meet every third year at Min­is­te­r­i­al lev­el. Offi­cials will meet in the inter­ven­ing years. 

The ADMM+ builds on the ASEAN Defence Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing, which was estab­lished in 2006 by the 10 ASEAN coun­tries. ASEAN Defence Min­is­ters hold their fifth annu­al meet­ing imme­di­ate­ly before the ADMM+. 

By involv­ing all mem­bers of the East Asia Sum­mit, togeth­er with the Unit­ed States and Rus­sia, the ADMM+ will strength­en and deep­en trust and coop­er­a­tion on defence and secu­ri­ty mat­ters through­out the Asia-Pacif­ic region. 

Dur­ing the inau­gur­al meet­ing, Defence Min­is­ters will dis­cuss the estab­lish­ment of a frame­work for region­al coop­er­a­tion on issues includ­ing counter-ter­ror­ism, human­i­tar­i­an and dis­as­ter relief, mar­itime secu­ri­ty, and peacekeeping. 

Aus­tralia wel­comes the estab­lish­ment of the ADMM+, which fur­ther strength­ens our region’s defence and secu­ri­ty coop­er­a­tion archi­tec­ture. Aus­tralia has been a reli­able part­ner of ASEAN for over 30 years, and an active par­tic­i­pant in ASEAN-relat­ed meet­ings, includ­ing the ASEAN Region­al Forum and the East Asia Sum­mit. Aus­tralia has sup­port­ed the pro­posed greater engage­ment of the Unit­ed States in the East Asia Summit. 

In addi­tion to par­tic­i­pat­ing in ADMM+, I will hold bilat­er­al meet­ings with coun­ter­parts from the region, includ­ing US Sec­re­tary of Defense Gates, Japan­ese Defence Min­is­ter Kitaza­wa, and Chi­nese Defence Min­is­ter Liang. 

I will also sign a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing on Defence Coop­er­a­tion with the Meeting’s host, Viet­namese Defence Min­is­ter Gen­er­al Thanh, reflect­ing the grow­ing bilat­er­al defence coop­er­a­tion between Aus­tralia and Vietnam. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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