Minister Dacic meets with ASEAN Secretary-General on the margins of the 43rd Summit

The interlocutors said that they were pleased that ASEAN member states had recognized Serbia's strong interest in acceding to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. It was pointed out that Serbia's accession to the Treaty was aimed at the further strengthening of political relations and overall cooperation with traditionally friendly countries of Southeast Asia that were ASEAN members as well as at underlining the significance it attached to the further deepening of bilateral and multilateral cooperation with countries in the region.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Dacic once again expressed his gratitude for the invaluable assistance that the ASEAN Secretariat provided by giving relevant guidelines in order to bring Serbia's accession process to the desired goal.

He also noted that Serbia was proud of the decades-long friendship and strong ties with countries of Southeast Asia that he said dated back to the 1950s and 1960s and the period of the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement and its most intensive activities.

As a successor to the SFRY, the Republic of Serbia continues to promote and develop cooperation with ASEAN member states while respecting the fundamental values of the Non-Aligned Movement, including mutual respect for independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and the national identities of all peoples, non-interference in internal matters of other states and commitment to overcoming all differences by peaceful means while encouraging comprehensive peaceful development and progress, which are also the fundamental values of ASEAN.

The collocutors agreed that the accession to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia provided many opportunities for the development of cooperation in various fields, considering that the region of Southeast Asia, to which the ASEAN member states belonged, was one of the most dynamic, richest and most diverse regions in the world.

ASEAN Secretary-General Hourn underlined that the signing of the Treaty should encourage comprehensive bilateral cooperation with ASEAN countries, not only politically and economically, but also in various areas such as culture, science, education, agriculture, the food industry, health care, defence and security, the fight against terrorism, prevention of transnational and other forms of crime as well as in medicine, information technologies, education, people-to-people exchanges and others.