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resident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to open the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting on Tuesday as Indonesia, the holder of ASEAN’s rotating chair, will broker a series of discussions aimed at resolving the region’s thorniest disputes.

Southeast Asia faces several major problems including a development gap, territorial disputes and the US-China rivalry.

ASEAN, which is working to declare a political-security, economic and sociocultural community by 2015, is also vying to create a regional architecture, as the US and Russia join the East Asia Summit (EAS) grouping ASEAN’s 10 member countries with six of the world’s most vibrant economies.

One by one, ASEAN’s problems might be eased under Indonesia’s leadership this year.

While two major territorial disputes — overlapping claims between China and four ASEAN members on areas in the South China Sea and the Thai-Cambodia border row — can only be solved bilaterally between claimant countries under international law and with years of negotiations, recent circumstances might make tensions more manageable or at least prevent open conflict.

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said on Monday that based on the discussions of senior officials before the foreign ministers’ meeting, the grouping would finalize the guidelines for the declaration of the code of conduct (DOC) in the South China Sea this year after nine years of on-and-off negotiations.

“We will finalize the guidelines this year and these guidelines will be used to create a code of conduct (COC), which hopefully we can sign next year,” he said.

Frequent naval clashes between claimant countries in the South China Sea, especially in the area near the Spratly and the Paracel Islands, have turned the territory into a source of tension in the region.

The COC will be used as commonly accepted rules to regulate relations at sea, including joint exploitation of the area, which straddles some of the world’s most important trade routes and is said to have abundant natural resources.

The COC, however, is not meant to address territorial disputes, which must be brought before the International Court of Justice for settlement.

ASEAN members are slated to meet with China while Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is slated to meet with his Chinese counterpart during the conference.

Marty also expressed optimism on Monday that the guidelines could be concluded this year.

The challenges are, however, a lack of patience from Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia — all of who see Indonesia as too soft on China — and the reluctance of China to compromise.

On the Thai-Cambodia row, Indonesia has realized it has a window of opportunity to mediate the border dispute and has held to a clear principle of not using guns to resolve the conflict.

On the Korean Peninsula, Bali might make history by hosting an informal meeting of the Six Party Talks member nations — the two Koreas, China, Japan, the US and Russia — as all have confirmed attendance at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on Saturday.