Senior Officials Meet Ahead Of Asean Foreign Ministers' Retreat

By R. Ravichandran KOTA KINABALU (Sabah, Malaysia), Jan 27 (Bernama) -- ASEAN senior officials began their meeting here Tuesday morning in preparation for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat Wednesday. The Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), attended by representatives from all the 10 member states, is being held at the Magellan Sutera Harbour Resort, chaired by Malaysian Foreign Ministry secretary-general Othman Hashim. The Malaysian delegation also comprises ASEAN-Malaysia National Secretariat director-general Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob. The SOM is expected to end at about 3.30 pm, after which will be held the meeting of the 4th ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group (ACCWG) on the Asean Community Post-2015 Vision. It is believed that the senior officials will follow up on, among others, decisions taken by ASEAN Leaders at the 25th ASEAN Summit in Myanmar last year on ASEAN Community building and the ASEAN Community Post-2015 Vision while the ACCWG meeting is expected to discuss, among others, a progress report of its activities. Tuesday night, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman will host a welcome dinner in honour of his Asean counterparts and the delegates. The ministers will have an informal chat during the dinner. Meanwhile, several more Asean foreign ministers as well as delegates are scheduled to arrive here Tuesday for the meeting. ASEAN secretary-general Le Luong Minh is also scheduled to arrive Tuesday. In all, about 200 delegates from the 10 Southeast Asian nations are expected to attend the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Retreat and other preparatory meetings from Jan 26 to 28. Another preparatory event, the Meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR), took place Monday. The foreign ministers' retreat is the first in a series of ASEAN meetings under Malaysia's chairmanship of ASEAN this year. Malaysia assumed the ASEAN chairmanship on Jan 1, taking over from Myanmar. Malaysia's vision throughout the chairmanship - themed 'Our People, Our Community, Our Vision' - is the creation of a people-centred ASEAN involving all sectors of society in the grouping's activities. ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) groups Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. -- BERNAMA