Hagel also said he wanted the Gulf nations to take part in an annual defence ministers' conference, and would like the first meeting to happen in the next six months.
Secretary Powell had returned to Vietnam as part of a five-country tour of the region, to attend the annual foreign ministers' conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Its members are still smarting over their failure for the first time in the organisation's 45-year history to agree on a joint statement after their annual foreign ministers' meeting, which they held last month in Phnom Penh.
See articleAt its annual foreign ministers' meeting, the Association of South-East Asian Nations ASEANN) called in unusually blunt terms for Myanmar, one of its members, to release Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the opposition, and other political prisoners.
Farmer said that the £1bn annual investment ministers have pledged for mental health services was not enough to achieve the goals he had set out, but he acknowledged that it was a significant step forward.
His conspicuous valour in the victorious sea fight with the Persians at Salamis (480) led soon to his election as strategus one of Athens' 10 annual war ministers and generals and he was apparently reelected every year until his ostracism in 461.
Outlining its new standards on its £117bn annual grants budget, ministers said universities and charities could not use grants to pay for professional lobbyists, but they could continue to advise and inform government policy.
Harold Bodmer, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (Adass), which carries out the annual survey, said ministers needed to promise adult social care the same level of protection and investment as the NHS.
It comes after Unison and the GMB union said they were planning the logistics of strike action if annual talks with ministers on government pay fail.
Unison and the GMB union revealed on Sunday that they were already planning the logistics of strike action if annual talks with ministers on government pay - due to happen early next year - fail.
