ASEAN not only peace maker but also bridge builder

FE Team | Published: August 17, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

JAKARTA, Aug 16 (Xinhua): ASEAN not only secured peace in Southeast Asia, but also played a role as bridge builder to promote dialogue and cooperation in and out of the region in the past 40 years, Hassan Wirayuda, foreign minister of Indonesia, said in an exclusive interview with the news agency at his office.
"The biggest achievement of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of its existence since 1967 was that we were able in the sub-region of Southeast Asia to enjoy the relative peace and stability that allowed us to focus our energy, time and resources for the economic development of countries in Southeast Asia," Wirayuda said.
As intensive cooperation and dialogue developed in the past three decades, ASEAN was able to cohesive and survive for that long.
"Another achievement is that, yes, by nature, ASEAN is an association of 10 Southeast Asian nations that work closely together to promote cooperation. But at the same time, ASEAN has been very open, and has been an active bridge builder in the immediate region of East Asia, ASEAN has been playing an important role, in the driving seat in the regional integration process of East Asia," said the foreign minister.
"But likewise such as through ASEAN+3 (ASEAN and dialogue partners China, Japan and South Korea), now the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum have become important forums for countries in the region and affect beyond to promote dialogue in political security that certainly has contributed to the creation and maintenance of regional peace and security particularly in the Asia Pacific region," he said.
The ASEAN Chapter is another concrete improvement for ASEAN to reach to a level to transform from a rather loose association into an ASEAN community.
"We agreed to develop an ASEAN Community which by that time we set the target the full integration will be attained by year 2020. But the internal dynamic of ASEAN, and also the dynamic of interactions between ASEAN and East Dialogue Partners, has led us in ASEAN to decide that we should accelerate the attainment of ASEAN community earlier than original schedule to 2015," said Wirayuda.
"It is in this context that we shared the urgency of consolidating ASEAN, the urgency to transform to a community. And for that matter the formulation of, I would rather to say, the drafting of the new ASEAN charter," he added.
Wirayuda expressed that ASEAN countries have two steps on the way to proceed towards a new ASEAN Charter. One is to establish an eminent persons group (EPG) to chart the vision of what would be the new ASEAN under the ASEAN community.
"The EPG submitted their reports and recommendations to the ASEAN leaders at their summit in Cebu last January, then leaders established a drafting group which is called the high-level task force on the ASEAN Charter," Wirayuda said.