The East Asia Summit (EAS), attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, opened in the Philippines' capital of Manila on Tuesday.

Axar.az reports citing TASS that, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who chairs the event, announced that the forum will be held behind closed doors, noting that the sides will discuss a broad range of international and regional issues.

The East Asian Summit was established in 2005 as a platform for dialogue between the leaders of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region on strategic issues of its development. Currently, the East Asia Summit brings together ten ASEAN countries (Brunei, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines), as well as Russia (joined the forum in 2010), Australia, India, China, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and the United States.

A Russian government official told reporters earlier that during the discussion at the East Asia Summit on Tuesday the parties will exchange views on current international and regional problems. "Russia joins the event with an initiative in the field of combating terrorism and the spread of terrorist ideology," the official said.

According to the official, Moscow also considers it important to further advance the consultations launched at its initiative on forming a regional security architecture. The next meeting of experts from the East Asia Summit countries on this topic is scheduled for November 2017. Russia expects to continue "a constructive discussion to achieve a comprehensive interstate document on security in the region."

Russia also sees prospects of deepening cooperation with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region for the sake of economic and social development of East Siberia and the Far East. Moscow also calls for boosting cooperation in emergency response. Russia earlier put forward an initiative of uniting national centers of Asia and Europe into a single network to tackle crises.

During last year’s East Asia Summit in Laos, Medvedev voiced an idea of setting up a mechanism on combating contagious diseases in the framework of the EAS. An expert-level meeting on this issue was held earlier in Moscow. Russia expects that serious results will be presented to the leaders at the summit in Manila, the official said.