US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not planning a separate meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the 55th ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Cambodia, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing a representative of the US Department of State.
The source noted that there were no plans for a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi either.
As US Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price said earlier, Blinken would visit Cambodia, the Philippines, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. In Phnom Penh, the US top diplomat will participate in meetings between foreign ministers in three formats: the US-ASEAN, the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security on August 3-5.
The Phnom Penh meeting will be the first face-to-face meeting of the bloc’s top diplomats in three years, since due to the threat of COVID-19, their meetings were held in a videoconference format. The events will be attended by a total of 39 foreign ministers, including 27 foreign ministers of ARF states and 12 foreign ministers invited as guests of the current ASEAN chairman.
The top diplomats will discuss the increased central role and unity of the association in regional affairs against the background of existing traditional and non-traditional challenges to security. The conference’s final document will reflect the adherence of ASEAN member states to the promotion of the union, economic interconnectedness and the activation of cooperation with the association’s dialogue partners.
