Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will be in Jakarta for two days from November 16 to attend the 10th ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), and address the forum on regional and international security issues.
On the sidelines of the highest defence consultative and cooperative mechanism in ASEAN, ADMM-Plus, Rajnath Singh will hold bilateral meetings with the Defence Ministers of the participating 18 countries and discuss defence cooperation matters to further strengthen mutually-beneficial engagements, the Ministry of Defence said in an official statement.
The ADMM-Plus is a platform for the ASEAN member States — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and its eight Dialogue Partners — India, US, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — to strengthen security and defence cooperation.
The ADMM-Plus progresses practical cooperation amongst member countries through seven Experts Working Groups (EWGs) namely maritime security, military medicine, cyber security, peacekeeping operations, counter-terrorism, humanitarian mine action and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), the MoD stated. During the 10th ADMM-Plus, the next set of co-chairs for the cycle 2024-2027 would also be announced. In the present cycle, from 2021-2024, India, who became dialogue partner of the ASEAN in 1992, is co-chairing EWG on HADR along with Indonesia.
Since 2017, the ADMM-Plus Ministers have been meeting annually to bolster the cooperation amongst the ASEAN and the Plus countries.