New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday at a summit of the 10-nation influential grouping that India fully supports a strong, unified, and prosperous ASEAN, one whose relevance in the Indo-Pacific is fully recognised.

Jaishankar stated that a better-connected India and ASEAN would be well-positioned to support decentralised globalisation and robust and reliable supply chains in his opening presentation at the two-day meeting.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one of the region's most powerful organisations, with India and numerous other countries such as the United States, China, Japan, and Australia as dialogue partners.

He claimed the COVID-19 pandemic has not completely subsided and that there's still a lot of ground to cover as "we travel towards post-pandemic recovery."

"With geopolitical headwinds that we confront owing to developments in Ukraine and their knock-on effects on food and energy security, as well as fertiliser and commodity prices, and logistics and supply chain disruptions," he said, "this path has become even tougher."

 ASEAN has successfully carved out a position for itself in the area and provided the groundwork for the Indo-growing Pacific's strategic and economic architecture, he said, adding that there is substantial convergence between ASEAN's Indo-Pacific Outlook and India's Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, demonstrating the two sides' shared vision for the region.

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