... is a coordination meeting of senior officials to stress ASEAN community's three pillars in the political, economic and socio-cultural fields...
Nusa Dua, Bali (ANTARA News) - ASEAN senior officials convened a meeting here on Wednesday to stress the coordination of the ASEAN community's three pillars.

"Overall, this meeting is a coordination meeting of senior officials to stress ASEAN community's three pillars in the political, economic and socio-cultural fields," Priatna, a senior official of the ASEAN Cooperation Directorate General at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said here on Wednesday night.

The ASEAN senior officials meeting which kicked off on Monday will end on Friday.

According to him, each of the senior officials would verify themes and interests in the three pillars before being endorsed by their heads of state/government at the ASEAN Summit here on November 13-19.

"So the meeting is like a tool to know the interests of each other's country in respect to the three pillars," he said.

Also on the agenda of the meeting is an ad hoc consultation meeting of East Asian senior officials. "At the ad hoc consultation meeting we will discuss which of the matters need to be adopted by ASEAN," he said.

The meeting also served as preparations for the ASEAN Summit so that ASEAN heads of state/government could agree on a number of decisions in a more concrete manner, he said.

"In essence, this meeting is a follow up to a meeting held in Yogyakarta some time ago. But at the meeting this time we much focus (on the matters)," he said.

At the Yogyakarta meeting, Indonesia was appointed to host more than 100 ASEAN meetings at heads of state/government, ministerial, and senior official levels as well as meetings of working groups. (M038)

Editor: Ade P Marboen
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