Security

ASEAN Regional Forum

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) emerged in 1994 as an extension of the Association of South East Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) external dialogues on political and security matters with states in the Asia-Pacific region. The annual ARF Ministerial Meeting has become an important forum for consultation on regional security and political issues and on global matters that impact on the region.

The first meeting of the ARF was held in Bangkok on 25 July 1994 in accordance with the 1992 Singapore Declaration of the Fourth ASEAN Summit whereby the ASEAN Heads of State and Government proclaimed their intent to intensify ASEAN’s external political and security dialogues as a means of building cooperative ties in the region. Attending the meeting were Foreign Ministers of ASEAN, ASEAN’s Dialogue and Consultative Partners and ASEAN’s observers or their representatives. It was considered to be an historic event for the region, being the first time that high-ranking representatives from the majority of states in the Asia-Pacific region came together specifically to discuss political and security cooperation issues.

A decade after its establishment the membership of the ARF consists of the ten members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), plus Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, South Korea, Russia, Timor Leste and the United States. Timor Leste was admitted to the ARF at its 12th meeting held in Vientiane on 29 July 2005. Bangladesh will join the ARF at its 13th meeting in 2006.

The annual ARF Ministerial Meeting is the high point of the ARF year and sets the course for the year ahead. It is preceded by a Senior Officials Meeting (SOM). The SOM for its part follows on from two annual Intersessional Support Group (ISG) meetings that focus on the ARF’s confidence building and preventive diplomacy agenda. Additionally, Intersessional meetings (ISMs) are conducted on an ad hoc basis around particular security themes. The current ISM focuses on counter-terrorism and transnational crime (CTTC).

The Chair of the ARF rotates around ASEAN members. Malaysia is the 2005/05 ARF Chair. The Chair of the ISGs is shared by an ASEAN and a non-ASEAN member. The ISG Chairs in 2005/05 are the Philippines and the United States (New Zealand was co-Chair with Laos in 2002/03). ISMs are conducted in the same way: the third ISM (in 2005) was co-chaired by Thailand and Canada and the fourth ISM will be co-chaired in 2006 by Brunei Darussalam and China.

The ARF has achieved considerable progress in increasing cooperation in the area of confidence building measures, in the discussion of preventive diplomacy and on a wide range of non-traditional security issues such as terrorism, natural disasters, disease epidemics and transnational crime. Dialogue among defence officials in the ARF setting has also been enhanced, in particular through the convening of ARF Security Policy Conferences. The first Security Policy Conference was held in Beijing in November 2004.

It was agreed at the outset that the ARF would run along two separate but coordinated tracks. Track One activities would be carried out by ARF governments. Track Two activities would be undertaken by strategic institutes and relevant non-government organisations. A number of useful Track Two activities have been undertaken, for example in respect of preventive diplomacy. At their 12th ARF meeting, Ministers emphasised the need to continue strengthening linkages between the two tracks.

Back to Security home page

top of page