ASEAN pledges to building caring and sharing community

In her keynote address at the opening ceremony of the meeting, which drew the participation of the Foreign Ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member nations as well as senior officials of Papua New Guinea and East Timor, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said “the four decades-old regional grouping is trying to evolve into a community that is politically cohesive, economically integrated and socially responsible.”

While showing optimism about the region’s future, President Arroyo stressed that ASEAN should be a key factor to peace, security and stability in Southeast Asia as well as in the Asia-Pacific.

At the meeting, the foreign ministers discussed how to effectively implement ASEAN’s action plans in order to build the ASEAN Community by 2015. The Vientiane Action Plan (VAP), action plans to build the ASEAN Security Community (ASC), the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) as well as the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) were agreed by the ministers as the most important.

The ministers stressed the need to increase the effectiveness, synchronism as well as coordination amongst ASEAN members in building the three ASEAN pillars.

It was also important for ASEAN to narrow the gap in development between member countries on the way of regional integration, they said.

While appreciating the High-level Task Force (HLTF) in drafting the ASEAN Charter, the ministers gave instructions on how to finish the draft charter so as to submit to the 13 th ASEAN Summit slated for November 2007.

The ministers applauded ASEAN member countries’ activities to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the organisation and they all agreed to propose ASEAN leaders to take August 8 as an ASEAN special day.

The ministers spoke highly of the efforts made by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in adhering to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) on this occasion. They held that the fact that more and more non – ASEAN countries wished to join the TAC showed the importance of the treaty as a code of conduct guiding relations between countries, thus contributing to boosting peace, security and stability in the region.

The ministers approved an action plan for the implementation of the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in the coming time for a Southeast Asian region of peace, stability and without nuclear weapons. A committee will also be set up to deploy the ASEAN Declaration on the Rights of Migrant Workers and the regulations to support ASEAN residents in the third country in urgent cases.

The ministers discussed measures to boost the relations with ASEAN’s dialogue partners. They also appreciated strong support made by dialogue partners in and out the region for the efforts to build the ASEAN community./.