Will the war on Iran affect ASEAN’s efforts to tackle regional issues?

What the report says

Al Jazeera reported that escalating fighting between the United States and Iran has become a dominant issue around an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Manila, where the Philippines is hosting diplomats from Southeast Asia. The outlet’s Inside Story programme, published on 23 July 2026, framed the crisis as a test of whether the bloc can keep attention on its own regional agenda while a major conflict draws diplomatic and economic focus.

According to Al Jazeera, the ministers were expected to discuss pressing security challenges in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar’s civil war and overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. The report said ASEAN ministers have urged an end to the US-Iran hostilities, reflecting concern that the conflict is spilling into Asia’s strategic and economic calculations.

The programme noted that the war has affected Asian countries through pressure on energy and food supplies, disruption to trade, and wider fears of a global economic slowdown. Those concerns matter for ASEAN because the group’s members rely heavily on open shipping routes, stable commodity markets and sustained international commerce, even as they try to manage internal divisions over Myanmar and maritime disputes involving China and several Southeast Asian states.

The Al Jazeera discussion was hosted by James Bays and featured political scientist Richard Heydarian, ASEAN studies professor Phar Kim Ben, and lecturer Don McLain Gill. Based on the available article text, the central issue was not a new ASEAN decision, but whether a widening Middle East crisis could reduce diplomatic bandwidth and complicate consensus-building on Southeast Asia’s unresolved regional problems.