Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will lead a high-ranking Vietnamese delegation to attend the first ASEAN summit of this year in Brunei on April 24 and 25. The summit, which is themed “Our People, Our Future Together”, will focus on ASEAN’s orientations and priorities in 2013 and the group’s orientations for the period from now until 2015 and the years later, said Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh. ASEAN leaders will work out ways to step up the building of the ASEAN Community and maintain the bloc’s prominent role in handling important issues in the region. Vinh said.

As regards the Eat Sea issue, ASEAN leaders will discuss necessary measures to ensure peace, stability, and maritime security and safety in the East Sea. The issue should be settled on the basis of the Declaration on Six-point Principles on the East Sea and the ASEAN-China joint statement on the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), Vinh said.

The 10-nation bloc should ensure peaceful settlement of disputes, based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the early achievement of the Code of Conduct (COC) in the East Sea, the Deputy FM said. During the past years, ASEAN has proven itself as an important and indispensable factor to peace, security and stability in the region, the official said, adding that the bloc should further promote its central role to build peace, security and stability in the region.

As for Vietnam, one of the most important issues to the country is to ensure peace, stability and a safe maritime environment in the East Sea, Vinh said at a press conference in Hanoi on Thurday.

"To this end, we need to urge the implementation of the agreements and commitments between the related parties, including the Declaration on Six-point Principles, DOC, and the ASEAN-China joint statement on the 10th anniversary of the signing of DOC,"   Vinh told reporters.