First meeting of ASEAN security chiefs opens

 The first meeting of the ASEAN Chiefs of Security Agencies (MACOSA) was kick-started in Hanoi yesterday under the theme “From vision to action: Enhancing security cooperation among ASEAN members toward building the ASEAN Political-Security Community,”

The meeting is an initiative of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security.

Addressing the opening session, Deputy Minister of Public Security Bui Van Nam said the MACOSA aims to establish official channels for security cooperation among the ASEAN members, marking a new development in the regional security cooperation and accelerating the construction of the ASEAN Political-Security Community by 2015.

ASEAN currently has to face big challenges such as sovereign disputes, terrorism, climate change, natural disasters, diseases and environmental pollution. Thus, through the event, the bloc can come to joint actions for maintaining regional security.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security is actively working with relevant agencies in other ASEAN countries to build up the top level mechanisms for security cooperation, focusing on  exchanging information about regional security, protecting VIPs, training human resources to ensure national security, and assisting activities of the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC) and the ASEAN Police Chiefs Conference (ASEANAPOL).