ASEAN LEADERS ASKED TO FIND APPROPRIATE SOLUTIONS IN BUILDING ASEAN COMMUNITY

From Elmi Rizal Alias

HANOI, Oct 28 (Bernama) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said
Thursday Asean leaders should take stock of implementation of agreements and
find appropriate solutions to further accelerate the course of building the
Asean Community by 2015, strengthen Asean's external relations and enhance its
international role and position.

In making the call, Dung, who is chairman of the 17th Asean Summit and
Related Summits, said that these were important especially in ensuring peace,
security and development of the region and effectively responding to global
challenges.

"We are pleased with the enormous achievements made. Yet we can also see
clearly the duties and tasks ahead in fast changing and complicated developments
in regional and international situations wherein opportunities and challenges
intertwine," he said at the opening of the 17th Asean Summit and Related
Summits, here.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who arrived here earlier Thursday, is leading
the Malaysian delegation to the three-day 17th Asean Summit and Related Summit.

To achieve the goals, Dung said he hoped that the meetings here would focus
on areas where Asean leaders should continue to identify and carry out
comprehensive measures to accelerate the implementation of the programmes and
plans to build the Asean community in the most effective manner.

"In particular, we should make efforts to create a real improvement in the
'culture of compliance', through among others strengthening the monitoring and
assessing mechanisms for materialisation of agreements.

"We should also need to complete the full legal framework in line with the
Asean Charter, improve the operational efficiency of Asean bodies and
modalities, strengthen coordination among executing agencies, enhance resources
mobilisation and incorporate regional agreements into national development
programmes and plans," he said.

Dung said Asean leaders also needed to further strengthen Asean's external
relations through concrete plans and measures to support the goal of building
the Asean Community.

Accordingly, he added that they should proactively push up their relations
with dialogue partners under the Asean+1 framework to a higher level, which
should be more comprehensive, substantive and effective.

Asean leaders should further undertake comprehensive measures to ensure
Asean centrality in an evolving regional architecture along the line of
decisions made at the 16th Asean Summit, he said.

He said Asean also needed to further enhance its role as an important force
in the maintenance of peace and stability in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific
at large.

"We should make more efforts especially by increasing dialogue and
cooperation on political-security issues to enhance mutual understanding and
trust among nations," he said.

Finally, he said Asean should act as a responsible member of the
international community in responding to the current global challenges
especially the economic-financial crisis, climate change, natural disasters or
pandemics.

"I am confident that with our strong political determination and far-sighted
vision as well as the active and valuable contributions from all leaders of
Asean and our partner countries, our meetings will be a great success in finding
practical solutions to the matters at hand for the common interest of peace,
stability and development in the region," he added.

Najib later joined other Asean leaders for the Summit Retreat programme
and will be attending the summit's Informal Working Dinner programme tonight.
-- BERNAMA