core sector communique

ASEAN SG’s Post-Summit Briefing

 

ASEAN Secretariat, 9 November 2009

 

 

ASEAN would have to be fully integrated, behave as a rules-based organisation and deliver in order to maintain and enhance its centrality in the region. These elements take on an added impetus as new regional arrangements or cooperative frameworks had emerged over the years and new ideas on regional architecture are being floated, said the Secretary-General of ASEAN.

 

Stressing that “ASEAN is the fulcrum of power plays in the region,” Dr Surin Pitsuwan added that the region has mission and responsibility for the betterment of not only the region but also the global community. Dr Surin was briefing representatives of the diplomatic community, regional/international organisations and the media in Jakarta on the outcome of the 15th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits which concluded recently.

 

The Leaders of ASEAN at the Summit stressed the need for ASEAN to continue to play a proactive role in regional processes that it had initiated in order to maintain and enhance its centrality role. This had come amidst the new proposal from Japan to reinvigorate the dialogue towards building, in the long run, an East Asian community based on the principles of openness, transparency, inclusiveness and functional cooperation, and Australia’s proposal for an Asia Pacific community.

 

In his briefing, the Secretary-General also highlighted several other main outcomes of the Summit, such as the inauguration of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the development of an ASEAN master plan on regional connectivity. 

 

“The community is healthy, momentum has been regained. We have the confidence to move ahead and with the help of our Dialogue Partners, 2015 is within our reality,” Dr Surin said.

 

The Secretary-General also answered several questions from the media on the apparent escalation of tensions between Cambodia and Thailand in recent weeks. The Secretary-General, in a letter to all ASEAN Foreign Ministers last week, had appealed to both countries to exercise maximum restraint and further urged the ASEAN Foreign Ministers to assist the two ASEAN Member States to settle their bilateral dispute amicably and as soon as possible.