THE United States of America is firmly committed to working together with Asean on rebalancing their interests and investments in Southeast Asia and Asia as a whole, and to continue building on their active and enduring presence as an Asia-Pacific nation.

This was said yesterday by US Secretary of State John Kerry at a press conference as part of the ministerial meetings which took place at the International Convention Centre, Berakas.

“Let me first thank His Majesty the Sultan (and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam) and the people of Brunei for hosting us all here at this forum,” he said. “It’s wonderful to be back for my second visit to the region as Secretary of State.”

“As I said in April in Tokyo, President Obama has made, I think, a very smart and strategic decision to rebalance our interests and our investments in Asia, and that initiative continues with as much intensity as it was when it commenced.

“As a Pacific nation that takes our Pacific partnership very, very seriously, the United States is going to continue to build on our active and our enduring presence in every respect, and as I said this morning at the outset of the Asean-US Ministerial Meeting, one of the most important ways that we are going to do that is in our partnership with Asean and its member states.”

This, he said, is a partnership that they are advancing through cooperation on a wide range of issues, through the undertaking of a number of projects together, including the Lower Mekong Initiative.

He described the ministerial meetings held here in the Sultanate as being “a very important opportunity” to be able to work with Asean and other regional partners on many challenges that they face together right now.

“Strengthening the multilateral architecture of the security in this region and strengthening it throughout the Asia-Pacific will, in the end, bolster the international rules and norms by which all nations are to take their actions,” he said, adding that this will ultimately bolster peace and stability in the region.

“That’s why supporting the region’s institutions – Asean, the Asean Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit – all of them are really an important part of the United States’ rebalance to this region.”

He said that their agenda here touches on almost all of the top challenges that they face as individual nations and as a region, and that they also touch on all of the opportunities they share.

“The opportunities are, frankly, very exciting,” he highlighted. “They should energise everybody here.”

The US Secretary of State then went on to stress, “The regional meetings of all of my fellow ministers and me over these two days are really of the highest importance, and they’re important not only to the regional peace and prosperity of the Asia Pacific, but they will have an impact on global security.”

America, he underlined, is firmly committed to working with their regional allies and their partners, along with multilateral institutions such as Asean.

“That’s why I’m here, and President Obama is deeply committed to these kinds of initiatives in an effort to try to find greater cooperation on economics, peace and stability, and most importantly, also, people-to-people exchanges and proving the ability to be able to reach greater understanding.”

While responding to a question on the US interests and investments in Asia during the press conference, Kerry reaffirmed their strong belief in the rebalance and in the importance of Asia and Southeast Asia.

“I will be back here at least several times over the course of the year – we have the East Asia Summit, we have Apec, we have a bunch of meetings – and I look forward to visiting a number of countries already being planned for visits.

“We have to delay a couple of those visits this time because of the efforts in the Middle East Peace process.

“But one thing I can assure you is that the United States of America operates globally, and the fact that we might be in one place engaged in the important effort of trying to make peace does not detract from the fact that we have undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy secretaries and ambassadors and countless numbers of trade representatives and defence secretaries constantly engaged in this region advancing our mutual interests.” - Borneo Bulletin (2 July 2013)