The recent United States–North Korea summit has certainly been an epochal event, as it offers a glimmer of hope of triggering peace dividends on the Korean Peninsula.

While the Singapore summit on June 12 between leaders Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is instrumental to security in the East Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia faces its own security challenge and agenda. That is the full and effective implementation of the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ).

This refers to the nuclear-weapon-free-zone designated to the 10 Southeast Asian countries when they signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone in Bangkok on Dec. 15, 1995.

Other, similarly designated zones are the Tlatelolco (Latin and the Caribbean), Rarotonga (South Pacific), Pelindaba (Africa) and the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone.