REUTERS 


The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including Senators Bob Menedez, Ranking Member and Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Mitt Romney, Ranking Member and Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, Jim Risch, and Ed Markey, introduced a new Resolution on May 5 in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee welcoming the ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit is scheduled for next week.

The decision welcomes the participation of ASEAN representatives in the ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit to be held for the first time in Washington, D.C., and supports and emphasizes the full implementation of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, including the enhancement of relations with ASEAN and the pursuit of a strong economic agenda. It reaffirms the importance of U.S.-ASEAN economic engagement and calls on ASEAN to continue its efforts to integrate, strengthen solidarity and ties with partners, and recognize the value of strategic economic initiatives.

The Resolution also supports ASEAN in managing maritime challenges, calls on all parties involved in maritime disputes in the region to cease activities that could undermine stability, complicate disputes, demilitarize islands and rocks, oppose actions by any state to prevent another state from exercising sovereign rights over resources in its exclusive economic domain and continental shelf, and oppose demands for the construction of administrative and military zones on disputed areas in the East Sea...

The Resolution also supports the efforts of U.S. partners and allies in ASEAN to build maritime capacity, ensure freedom of navigation, and support the Mekong-U.S. partnership.

It also calls on countries to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity and to oppose political upheaval, conflict, and the use of war to settle disputes.