KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, Saturday 14 February 2015 – The ASEAN Defence Senior Officials’ Meeting Plus (ADSOM-Plus) convened today at the JW Marriott Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Meeting was chaired by Dato’ Sri Abdul Rahim bin Mohamad Radzi, Secretary General, Ministry of Defence Malaysia, and participated by all ADMM-Plus countries as well as representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat. The Head of Delegation for Brunei Darussalam was Datin Paduka Hajah Suriyah binte Haji Umar, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence as the ADSOM-Plus leader for Brunei Darussalam, and accompanied by Haji Adi Ihram bin Dato Paduka Haji Mahmud, the ADSOM-Plus Working Group (ADSOM WG) leader for Brunei Darussalam, as well as officers from the Directorate of Defence Policy and the Joint Force Headquarter Royal Brunei Armed Forces.
During the Meeting, the ASEAN Secretariat provided an overview of the remarkable developments in ASEAN, while the ADSOM-Plus WG Chairman gave a briefing on the outcomes of the first and second ADSOM-Plus WG meeting held in Johor Bahru on 24 January 2015, and 13 February 2015 respectively.
The ADSOM-Plus also exchanged their views on regional and international security and defence issues, including shared mutual interests of securing the maritime domain which is critical to regional economic development and prosperity; concerns on the rise of violence and brutality committed by the self-declared Islamic State and other terrorist/extremist organizations and radical groups in Iraq and Syria, and threats posed by returning foreign terrorist fighters; climate change and natural disasters; cyber security; and the threat of contagious diseases and pandemics such as Ebola. ADSOM-Plus leaders reaffirmed that these issues must be dealt together through mutual cooperation and understanding in the spirit of collective responsibility in securing a peaceful and stable environment.
The ADSOM-Plus were also briefed on the progress of the six ADMM-Plus Experts’ Working Groups (EWG), which are the EWG on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) co-chaired by Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and Japan; EWG on Counter Terrorism (CT) co-chaired by Singapore and Australia; EWG on Maritime Security (MS) co-chaired by Brunei Darussalam and New Zealand; EWG on Military Medicine (MM) co-chaired by Thailand and the Russian Federation; EWG on Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) co-chaired by Cambodia and the Republic of Korea; as well as the EWG on Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA) co-chaired by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and India.
During the briefing on the EWG on MS, Brunei Darussalam and New Zealand gave an overview of the progress in enhancing practical maritime security, increasing capacity building and interoperability among ADMM-Plus militaries. These include the conduct of a seminar on Counter Piracy Operations and the Eighth ADMM-Plus EWG on MS in Auckland in June 2014; as well as the Ninth ADMM-Plus EWG on MS and Table Top Exercise held in Brunei Darussalam in October 2014.
Brunei Darussalam and Singapore also briefed the meeting on the outcomes of the ADMM-Plus Maritime Security and Counter Terrorism Exercise Initial Planning Conference (IPC) which was held in Brunei Darussalam on 2 – 6 February 2015, as a preparation for the ADMM-Plus Maritime Security and Counter Terrorism Exercise to be held in Brunei Darussalam and Singapore in May 2016.
The day before, all ADSOM leaders had a joint call to Yang Berhormat Dato’ Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, Defence Minister of Malaysia, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Kuala Lumpur. YM Datin Hjh Suriyah also had an opportunity to hold bilateral calls with the ADSOM-Plus leaders of Singapore, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, People’s Republic of China, and the United States of America at the sidelines of the ADSOM-Plus.