BISHKEK (TCA) — Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN high-level events that took place in Vientiane, Laos on July 26, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke about prospects of holding negotiations between the Eurasian Economic Union and ASEAN as an organization.
“We are also making progress in cooperation between the ASEAN countries and the Eurasian Economic Union after Vietnam signed a Free Trade Area Agreement [with the EEU]. Singapore, Cambodia and a number of other Southeast Asian countries have shown an interest in it also,” the Russian Foreign Ministry quoted Lavrov as saying.
Lavrov said that in the course of discussions in Vientiane, integration processes were addressed. “We spoke in detail about President Vladimir Putin’s initiatives regarding interaction between the Eurasian Economic Union and the ASEAN countries and our vision of the further development of integration processes in the Asia-Pacific Region, including the initiative that President Putin put forward at the ASEAN-Russia summit in Sochi on ways to create a broad Eurasian Economic partnership with the participation of the EEU, the SCO and the ASEAN countries while leaving the doors open for other interested parties,” the Russian Foreign Minister said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was established in 1967 with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration by the Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Later on, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Cambodia joined the organization, making up what is today the ten Member States of ASEAN.
The Eurasian Economic Union is an economic cooperation bloc consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
