"We see ASEAN as one of our important partners in this part of the world and as a major player in the new process of integration in Asia Pacific," Russian Ambassador to Indonesian Alexander A Ivanov said here Tuesday.
Russia was consistently developing relations with ASEAN in various ways such as the dialog partnership between Russia and ASEAN which was established in 1996. In November 2004, Russia also acceded to the ASEAN treaty of amity and cooperation and the Bali treaty.
"In 2009, the Russian federation`s president appointed me as ambassador to Indonesian concurrently to ASEAN, and I handed my credentials to ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan in January 2009," Ivanov said.
Over the past few years, Russia and ASEAN had signed a number agreements , namely the joint declaration on partnership of peace and security and prosperity development in the Asia Pacific in June 2003, Russian-ASEAN Foreign Ministers joint declaration on combating international terrorism in July 2004,
Also the heads of state`s joint declaration on progressive and comprehensive partnership and comprehensive program of action to promote declaration which was signed in December 2005, and the cultural declaration agreement during the second Russian-ASEAN summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in October 2009.
Russia-ASEAN cooperation had been going on in different spheres such as political, economic, trade and humanitarian and cultural. "We have also succeeded in raising our partnership to a higher level by holding the Russia-ASEAN summit," he said.
At the second Russia-ASEAN summit, the Russia-ASEAN leaders issued a joint statement expressing their joint approach and vision to security and stability in the Asia Pacific region, moreover by the Russian Foreign Affairs Minister takes part in the ASEAN post Ministerial conferences every year, such as the ASEAN +1, ASEAN +10 and ASEAN Regional Forum Meting.
"The Russian foreign minister never skips annual ASEAN events," he said.
"This year the East Asia Summit will be held in Bali in July, and we have developed a structural mechanism for Russia`s cooperation with ASEAN such as a joint planning and management committee, joint declaration committee, ministerial meetings, Senior Officials meetings on trade and economic cooperation, summits and regular economic ministers` meetings.
"Within the partnership framework with ASEAN, Russia also has the expense of its state budget established a special financial fund, to fund the different joint declaration activities," he said.
The total fund by Russia for the cooperation has reached up to 1.750 million US dollars, and beginning this year Russia is planning to contribute 1.5 million US dollars annually to this cooperation.(*)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
