In an effort to further strengthen ties, India and the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations(ASEAN)on Thursday agreed to work towards a comprehensive strategic partnership that is meaningful, substantive and mutually-beneficial by further enhancing their strategic ties.
This was the main takeaway from the two-day meeting here of the India-ASEAN foreign ministerial conference hosted by New Delhi to mark the 30th anniversary of its relations with the 10-nation grouping.
The objective to make the India-ASEAN ties substantive was stated in a statement by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan at the meeting.
Jaishankar and Balakrishnan are the co-chairs of the two-day meeting that began on Thursday. The meeting discussed the situation in the South China Sea, a resource-rich region that has been witnessing increasing Chinese muscle-flexing, sources said. Fall-out of the Ukraine conflict also came up for discussion, it was learnt.
India fully supports a strong, unified and prosperous ASEAN with a central role in the Indo-Pacific and both sides should identify a new set of priorities while navigating the "arduous path" arising from developments in Ukraine, Jaishankar said in his opening remarks.
He talked about the "geopolitical headwinds" triggered by the Ukraine crisis and its knock-on effects on food, energy security, prices of fertilisers and commodities as well as logistics and supply chains.
In his remarks, Balakrishnan slammed Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, saying such actions if unchecked can threaten the "whole system of peace and stability which we have depended on for the basis of our growth, development and prosperity over many decades".
Balakrishnan, who is the country coordinator for India in ASEAN, said Russian actions have "upended the international system of rules and norms and international law which we all depend on".
In their statement, the co-chairs said the meeting reaffirmed commitment to multilateralism founded on the principles of international laws including the Charter of the United Nations, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other relevant UN treaties and conventions.
The foreign ministers agreed to work towards maintaining an open and inclusive regional cooperation framework, support ASEAN centrality in the evolving rules-based regional architecture and uphold multilateralism in jointly responding to regional and global challenges.
"Had a good interaction with Foreign Ministers and Representatives of @ASEAN countries as we celebrate 30 years of close India-ASEAN cooperation," Modi tweeted.