Canberra, 22 November 2021 (TDI): Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne briefed the Australian Senate over her visits to engage ASEAN countries earlier this month.
The Foreign Minister told that Australia and ASEAN are close partners. In her tweet, she noted that her visit to ASEAN states underscored their commitment to secure & resilient Indo-Pacific.
🇦🇺 & @ASEAN are close partners. As I updated the Senate today, I recently visited #Malaysia, #Cambodia, #Vietnam & #Indonesia, underscoring our commitment to a secure & resilient #IndoPacific & to progress implementation of our ASEAN-🇦🇺 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. pic.twitter.com/LWh3Yet4Ew
— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) November 22, 2021
Minister Payne visited Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia to implement the ASEAN-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership earlier this month.
Visit of Indonesia
The Australian Foreign Minister visited Indonesia to conduct meetings with the officials of the Pacific country. She met with her Indonesian counterpart, Menteri Luar Negeri, in Jakarta. She congratulated Indonesia for assuming the Chair of the G20.
The matters like Covid-19 recovery efforts were discussed in the meeting on the counterpart level. Minister Marise expressed gratitude to the Indonesian Foreign Minister on behalf of her country over Indonesia’s support of ASEAN-AUSTRALIA Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Visit of Cambodia
During her visit to Cambodia, she addressed the Australia-Cambodia relationship and shared Covid-19 recovery with the Cambodian Foreign Minister. They also discussed the 2022 ASEAN Chair of Cambodia in the next year.
Minister Payne noted that ASEAN is at the heart of Indo-Pacific which is open, inclusive, and resilient.
Visit of Vietnam
On her visit to Vietnam, she was received by Vietnamese Premier Pham Minh Chin. She assured her support to Vietnam in fields of infrastructure development, agriculture, poverty reduction, and climate change adaptation.
She expressed full support to Vietnam over the East China Sea and was determined to solve the disputes according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
While Prime Minister Pham expressed gratitude for the Australian commitment to provide vaccine support to Vietnam. He wants Australia to continue assisting them in fighting the pandemic, rebooting economic recovery, strengthening health preparedness capacity.
He also expressed that Australia should help Vietnam in adapting to climate change. The matters like improving relations such as 50 % increase in two-ways trade on year between the two countries also came into discussion.
