5th East Asia Summit opens in Hanoi

HANOI. October 30. KAZINFORM The fifth East Asia Summit (EAS) opened here on Saturday, where leaders of ASEAN and six dialogue partners gathered to discuss strategic issues of relevance to the region. Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

The six dialogue partners include China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were invited to attend this year's EAS as special guests.

The participating leaders were expected to adopt ASEAN's proposal of inviting Russia and U.S. to join the EAS starting from next year.

Despite the expansion of the EAS membership, the EAS will maintain its established objectives, principles, modalities as well as current agenda, said Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in his opening remarks at the Summit. Nguyen Tan Dung chaired this year's Summit.

Since its inception in 2005, the EAS, or the so-called ASEAN plus six, has served as a forum for dialogue on broad strategic issues of relevance to East Asia as well as other regional and global issues, with the focus on areas such as international terrorism, energy, infectious diseases, sustainable development, poverty reduction and others. Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.xinhuanet.com for full version