Overview
- ASEAN foreign ministers agreed Thursday to hold a virtual meeting with Myanmar’s foreign minister soon, keeping top junta leaders sidelined while testing a narrow re‑engagement track.
- Ministers endorsed for leaders’ adoption a Middle East crisis response that stresses free passage in key sea lanes, upholding international law, emergency crisis messaging, and support for energy, food, and the safety of Southeast Asian workers.
- The Philippines, as chair, pressed members to ratify and operationalise the ASEAN Petroleum Security Agreement to enable emergency fuel sharing, alongside moves to advance a regional power grid.
- Following Thursday’s trilateral diplomacy in Cebu, the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia tasked their foreign ministers to restart boundary talks and other mechanisms to cool last year’s border clashes.
- Officials said talks with China on a South China Sea code of conduct show momentum this year, though members doubt strong enforcement as the region relies on oil that must pass chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz.