ASEAN foreign ministers met with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab virtually on Thursday, in the midst of a British charm offensive in Asia that it unleashed in 2018 as part of its post-Brexit strategy.

The UK officially submitted its application to become an ASEAN dialogue partner in June last year, and since then the country has attended two ministerial meetings with ASEAN, as well as hosting fellow Commonwealth partner Brunei as ASEAN’s chair this year at the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers meeting in May.

Raab touted ASEAN as an influential group of 10 nations in the Indo-Pacific, and the new partnership status would formalize the UK’s relations with the group, giving the UK access to and involvement in annual meetings with foreign ministers of Southeast Asia.

Raab himself has visited the region five times, including to Indonesia in April.

“This is a landmark moment in the UK’s tilt toward the Indo-Pacific. Our closer ties with ASEAN will help create green jobs, reinforce our security cooperation, promote tech and science partnerships, and safeguard key pillars of international law like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Raab said in a statement on Thursday.

Read also: UK hopes to engage more with ASEAN, attend future meetings

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