India stressed the significance of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) mechanism and the need for dialogue and diplomacy to tackle current geopolitical challenges at the ARF Senior Officials’ Meeting in Manila. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, mentioned that Secretary (East) Shri Rudrendra Tandon headed the Indian delegation at the event on June 9. The focus was on the importance of the ARF mechanism and the role of dialogue and diplomacy in addressing present-day geopolitical issues.
Deliberations at the meeting revolved around the regional and international security landscape, emphasizing the necessity for collective efforts to uphold a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was established in 1993 as a platform for regional security cooperation and dialogue following discussions in the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference. The ARF adopted a three-stage process to effectively address security concerns, starting with Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), moving on to preventive diplomacy, and concluding with approaches to conflicts.
Comprising 27 members, the ARF includes the 11 ASEAN member states and 10 ASEAN Dialogue Partners, along with other countries like Bangladesh, North Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Papua New Guinea. Since its inception, the ARF has been guided by ASEAN’s principles of consensus, confidence-building, and progress at a pace acceptable to all parties involved.
