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Southeast Asian Ministers Endorse Plans for Pandemic Fund


FILE - Health workers wearing protective masks hold signs during a rally outside a hospital in metropolitan Manila, Philippines, Feb. 7, 2020, demanding the government ensure their safety and raise their pay amid to the coronavirus threat.
FILE - Health workers wearing protective masks hold signs during a rally outside a hospital in metropolitan Manila, Philippines, Feb. 7, 2020, demanding the government ensure their safety and raise their pay amid to the coronavirus threat.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said Friday that the top diplomats of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations linked up by video Thursday in a meeting led by Vietnam.

Southeast Asian foreign ministers have endorsed the setting up of a regional fund to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and discussed a planned video summit of their leaders with counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said Friday that the top diplomats of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations linked up by video Thursday in a meeting led by Vietnam.

The ministers endorsed several collective steps to fight the pandemic, including the establishment of a COVID-19 ASEAN response fund, the sharing of information and strategies and ways to ease the impact of the global health crisis on people and the economy, the department said in a statement.

It did not provide details. pandemic, three Southeast Asian diplomats told The Associated Press. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to discuss the high-level meeting.

In Thursday's discussion, Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea amid the contagion, the department said.

The Philippines has expressed solidarity with Vietnam after a Vietnamese fishing boat was reportedly rammed and sank by a Chinese coast guard ship in disputed waters near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea.

Vietnam and the Philippines and two other ASEAN member states, Brunei and Malaysia, have been locked in long-standing territorial disputes with China and Taiwan in the strategic waterways, one of the world's busiest,

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