This is
impressive for the litany of ASEAN efforts Hillary Clinton has fostered
in her tenure at State. It is especially heartening to see her bring
up the issue of poaching. Hillary Clinton knows why we should protect
our fellow creatures.
Remarks at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting
Remarks
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Waldorf Astoria Hotel
New York City
September 27, 2012
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well
good afternoon everyone, and welcome to New York. Thank you for joining
us here. It’s a pleasure to welcome all of you to New York, and I want
to offer a special greeting to my co-chair. Thank you so much, Foreign
Minister. Not very long ago, it would have been impossible to imagine we
would be sitting here together working so closely to advance a shared
agenda, but it is a testament to the progress your country has achieved
and to the promise that the future holds.
Since my first meeting
with this group over three years ago, when I signed the Treaty of Amity
and Cooperation in Thailand, the United States has made a sustained
all-out effort to build an enduring multifaceted relationship with
ASEAN. Over the summer I led a large delegation of American business
executives and senior government officials to the first ever U.S.-ASEAN
Business Forum, reflecting the increasingly important economic dimension
of our partnership. And this year, we are expanding our cooperation on
education to the U.S.-ASEAN Fulbright Initiative, and the Brunei-U.S.
English Language Enrichment Project. We’ve also committed substantial
new resources to the Lower Mekong Initiative, which is helping narrow
ASEAN’s development gap. And we welcomed in our colleagues from Nay Pyi
Taw to the meeting.
Earlier this month, I had the chance to visit
the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta for the second time, and I thank the
Secretary General for his warm and gracious hospitality. I’m pleased
that the ASEAN committee of permanent representatives is visiting the
United States this week for discussions on a wide range of issues.
Our
increasing engagement with ASEAN is part of a broader effort by the
United States to deepen our commitment to the Asia Pacific region. We
want to work with all of you to build a stable and just regional order
that will benefit every nation. And that means supporting mature and
effective institutions that can mobilize common action and settle
disputes peacefully. It means working toward rules and norms that help
manage relations between peoples, markets, and nations and safeguard
universal rights. And it means establishing security arrangements that
provide stability and build trust.
Our relationship with ASEAN is
at the heart of all these efforts, including our participation in the
East Asia Summit. As President Obama made clear at last year’s meeting,
the United States supports the East Asia Summit as the Asia Pacific’s
premier institution for political and strategic issues, and we believe
it is the capstone of increasingly mature and effective regional
architecture.
We are pleased to see that the East Asia Summit is
making progress across an expanding range of issues, from the energy
ministerial in Brunei to the education ministerial in Indonesia. As we
head toward the November leaders meetings, it is important we stay
focused on pursuing a clear agenda and producing concrete results. We
continue to support the priorities put forward in the Bali Declaration
last year. And in particular, the areas that President Obama stressed
should be at the top of our agenda together: disaster relief,
nonproliferation, and maritime security. Now let me just say a quick
work about each of those, and then a fourth we hope to elevate.
First,
disaster relief. From the tsunami in Aceh in 2004 and on the islands
off of Thailand and in Sri Lanka and so much else in the region, to the
floods in the Philippines and Thailand again last year, to the triple
disaster in Japan, to a cycle of storms and flooding, we have seen a lot
of natural disasters in this region. But we also have seen a
coordinated international response. The United States has been eager to
work with our partners in the ASEAN Regional Forum and to participate in
and help lead disaster relief exercises. We continue to believe it is
imperative to develop a regional, legal framework to support the
delivery and acceptance of emergency relief supplies, services, and
personnel following major disasters. So we would urge all nations to
endorse the Rapid Disaster Response Agreement as a first step.
The
second priority is nonproliferation. Let me underscore it’s essential
for all ASEAN and East Asia Summit nations to remain firm and unified in
pursuit of the peaceful, verifiable denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula. We also look to all ASEAN members to universalize the
additional protocol and further strengthen domestic export control laws.
And
I think it’s also fair to say that our responsibilities cannot end with
the immediate neighborhood. Unfortunately, yesterday the President of
Iran provided another reminder of why the international community
continues to have serious concerns about his country’s nuclear program.
As President Obama told the General Assembly, America wants to resolve
this issue through diplomacy. We believe there is still time and space
to do so, but that time is not unlimited and that’s why the United
States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon.
The best way to achieve a diplomatic solution we all see
is for the international community, including ASEAN, to stay united. If
we ease the pressure or waver in our resolve, Iran will have less
incentive to negotiate in good faith or take the necessary steps to
address the international community’s concerns.
The third priority
is maritime security, and we look forward to the expanded ASEAN
maritime forum next week in Manila. All 18 East Asia Summit states have
been invited for in-depth discussions on how to improve safety on the
region’s waterways, combat piracy, protect the environment, and we are
encouraged by the recent informal dialogue between ASEAN and China as
they work toward a comprehensive code of conduct for the South China Sea
as a means to prevent future tension in the region.
As I have
said many times, the United States does not take a position on competing
territorial claim over land features, but we do have a national
interest in the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for
international law, freedom of navigation, and unimpeded lawful commerce
in the South China Sea. The Untied States continues to support ASEAN’s
Six-Point Principles, which we believe will help reduce tensions and
pave the way for a comprehensive code of conduct for addressing disputes
without threats, coercion, or use of force.
Finally this year, we
hope to focus our EAS partners on the challenge of wildlife trafficking
and the related issues of protecting biodiversity and preventing the
emergence of pandemic diseases. The illegal trade in protected and
endangered species is now estimated between $7- and $10 billion dollars a
year. It is increasingly intertwined with other illicit activities that
undermine regional security and prosperity, including organized crime.
Earlier this month, APEC economies agreed to take steps to stop poachers
and the United States is eager to work with our partners in ASEAN as
well, developing new initiative, building on the good work of the ASEAN
Wildlife Enforcement Network.
So we have a full plate in front of
us, but that’s no surprise. ASEAN is a dynamic and crucial institution
in a dynamic and crucial region of the world. The United States is
committed to working with you very closely as we head toward the East
Asia Summit in Phnom Penh in November. I thank you very much, and please
let me now turn to the Foreign Minister.
