Well, everybody, my apologies for being delayed, and I thank everybodyfor their patience and look forward to a very interesting and comprehensive discussion thisevening. I want to begin by thanking Foreign Minister Lwin and the Government of Myanmar,which has done a very solid job of leading ASEAN as chair this year. And I also want torecognize our new Ambassador to ASEAN Nina Hachigian, who was confirmed just in time tobe here today. (Laughter and applause.) We’re delighted to have Nina on board, and I know allof you will really enjoy working with her.
The United States remains deeply committed to engaging the Asia Pacific region. I thinkyou’ve heard us talking about our rebalanced Asia and the deep involvement that we havethere, working for the trade agreement, working with respect to security issues and globalclimate change – particularly important. I had occasion to be in the Philippines and see theimpact directly of Typhoon Haiyan. And so we have a lot of work to do, and we are deeplycommitted. President Obama has reinforced again and again his intention to keep the UnitedStates front and center in the region. I’ve already traveled there – I think it’s five or six timesin a year and a half. The President’s been there several times. We’re looking forward to beingback there shortly for the meetings in October, November, and there’s obviously a lot tocontinue to work on.
ASEAN and its centrality is essential to upholding the rules-based system throughout the AsiaPacific, and it is the best way to ensure that all countries big and small have a voice as we worktogether to address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities. That’s why theUnited States continues to invest so much in the relationship. It’s why we’re deepening our tiesamong our people-to-people programs, like President Obama’s Young Southeast Asian LeadersInitiative and the U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Program. And it’s why we fully support the formationof the ASEAN Economic Community in 2019.
President Obama and I are very much looking forward to being at the East Asia Summit, but inthe meantime we’re happy to discuss a few of the challenges that we’ve partnered on, includingour maritime security and the global threat of climate change. I hope we can discuss thisevening how best to work on some of the other global issues that we also face today – forexample, the growing numbers of foreign fighters from all over the world who have chosen to goto ISIL and join in their activities and present a danger and risk to all of us. We also obviouslyface the challenge of Ebola in West Africa, and we need everybody to be involved in the effortto contain it.
So I thank you all for carving out time in what has been an extraordinarily busy week here inNew York. We’ve got some very important conversations to have, but before we turn to that, Iwant to recognize Foreign Minister Lwin for his opening comments.
FOREIGN MINISTER LWIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Excellencies, at the outset letme express my sincere thanks to Secretary Kerry and the Government of the United States ofAmerica for hosting this important meeting, taking the opportunity of all our ASEANcolleagues’ presence here in New York as we are attending the 69th General Assembly of theUnited Nations.
I am delighted to see the progress in ASEAN-U.S. dialogue relations that encompasses all threepillars of the ASEAN community. We appreciate U.S. role in maintaining peace and securityin the region, as well as providing technical assistance for socio-economic and socio-culturaldevelopment in ASEAN member-states.
We are confident that ASEAN and the U.S. can further strengthen cooperation through theeffective implementation of the Plan of Action to implement the Joint Vision Statement ofASEAN-U.S. Enhanced Partnership.
ASEAN-U.S. Economic Ministers Meeting was held on 28 August overseeing the progress ofASEAN-U.S. economic cooperation and finding ways to move forward on the outstandingaspects of E3 Initiative, particularly on nonbinding shared principles of ASEAN-U.S. investment.I hope we could be able to see progress on those matters during the upcoming second ASEAN-U.S. Summit in November.
The ASEAN-U.S. Business Summit was successfully convened in Naypyidaw on 28 August,providing opportunities for our business people to interact and build networks. I look forward toseeing increased business activities between ASEAN and the United States. Socio-culture andpeople-to-people ties are also the areas that we should focus to promote better understandingbetween the peoples of ASEAN and U.S.
The U.S. supports on the CityLinks Pilot Partnership, which provide capacity building andtechnical (inaudible) programs on climate change adaptation among cities, is timely andeffective as we urgently need to tackle the negative effects of climate change. In this respect,we’ll work with the U.S. for the ASEAN-U.S. joint climate change statement to be issued atthe second ASEAN-U.S. Summit.
I look forward to have a fruitful discussion today to further address ASEAN-U.S. engagementin a more comprehensive way. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.