Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will pay an official visit to Jakarta on November 16 and 17 to attend the 10th Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) and will address the forum on regional and international security issues, the Ministry said on Tuesday. Indonesia is hosting the meeting as the chair of ADMM-Plus. The meeting comes at a time of escalated fighting in Myanmar between the Army and insurgent groups, with Myanmar refugees coming into Mizoram in India.
On the sidelines of the ADMM-Plus, Mr. Singh will hold bilateral meetings with the Defence Ministers of the participating countries and discuss defence cooperation matters to further strengthen mutually-beneficial engagements, the Ministry said in a statement.
The ADMM is the highest defence consultative and cooperative mechanism in ASEAN. The ADMM-Plus is a platform for the ASEAN member-states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam — and its eight dialogue partners — India, U.S., China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — to strengthen security and defence cooperation.
India became the dialogue partner of the ASEAN in 1992 and the inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Hanoi, Vietnam, on October 12, 2010. Since 2017, the ADMM-Plus Ministers have been meeting annually to bolster the cooperation amongst the ASEAN and the Plus countries, the statement noted.
The ADMM-Plus progresses practical cooperation amongst member countries through seven Experts Working Groups (EWGs) namely maritime security, military medicine, cyber security, peacekeeping operations, counter-terrorism, humanitarian mine action, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR). During the 10th ADMM-Plus, the next set of co-chairs for the cycle 2024-2027 would also be announced, the Ministry added. In the present cycle from 2021-2024, India is co-chairing EWG on HADR along with Indonesia.
