From March 19 to 20, 2025, New Delhi will host the 14th meeting of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) Experts Working Group (EWG) on Counter-Terrorism. The next meeting will be co-chaired by Malaysia and India. Along with Timor Leste and the ASEAN Secretariat, delegations from ten members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand) and eight dialogue partners (Australia, New Zealand, RoK, Japan, China, USA, and Russia) will be attending the meeting.
India will co-chair the EWG on Counter-terrorism once more. The keynote speech during the inaugural ceremony will be given by Defence Secretary Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh on March 19, 2025.
For the continuous cycle between 2024 and 2027, this will be the first gathering scheduled for EWG on Counter-terrorism. Talks will center on developing a strong and all-encompassing plan meant to address the changing menace of terrorism and extremism. The conference seeks to disseminate the on-ground knowledge of the ASEAN Defence Forces together with its dialogue partners. It will set the groundwork for the scheduled events, exercises, seminars, and workshops on the cycle 2024–2027.
Practical cooperation among the participating defense systems finds a venue in the ADMM-Plus. Seven areas of practical cooperation—counter-terrorism, maritime security, humanitarian aid and disaster management, peacekeeping operations, military medicine, humanitarian mine action, and cybersecurity—are now under attention. EWGs have been set up to help in various fields by facilitating cooperation.
Under a three-year cycle, one ASEAN member state and one dialogue partner co-chair each EWG. The responsibility of the co-chairs is to lay down the objectives, policy guidelines, and directions for the EWG for the three-year cycle at the beginning of the chairmanship, conduct regular EWG meetings (a minimum two in a year), and an exercise of any form (tabletop/field training/staff communication, etc.) for all member nations in the third year to test the development made in practical cooperation during the three-year cycle.
