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n ASEAN study center opened at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta to accelerate the creation of a more cohesive regional community.

UGM rector Pratikno said the center, the fifth launched in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, would help academics to research issues connected to forming the single ASEAN community by 2015.

'€œI do hope that the center will bridge people-to-people relationships among ASEAN member countries,'€ Pratikno said at the launch.

Also at the ceremony was Foreign Ministry ASEAN cooperation director general I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja and Japanese Ambassador to ASEAN Kimihiro Ishikane.

Puja said that the ministry had opened centers in another four cities in the nation, namely at Airlangga University in Surabaya, East Java; the University of Indonesia in Depok, West Java; Hasanuddin University in Makassar, South Sulawesi; and Andalas University in Padang, West Sumatra.

According to Puja, ASEAN had succeeded in maintaining peace in Southeast Asia for the last 45 years, as evinced by the absence of open wars and conflicts between the association'€™s member nations that might have disturbed the region'€™s stability, peace or economic development.

'€œHowever, the biggest challenge for ASEAN in the future will be how to maintain its central role while there are many major nations outside the region, including major dialogue partners, whose interests are staked in the region, and the tendency for their increasing involvement in the region,'€ Puja said.

The 10 members of the ASEAN previously agreed to establish a European Union-style economic
community to bring together the region'€™s diverse members to counterbalance the rise of China and a US that has been increasingly assertive in Asia.

Leaders attending the 22nd ASEAN summit in Brunei Darussalam last week were upbeat on the prospects of realizing for ASEAN Economic Community, which would have more than 600 million people, by the end of 2015.

Puja said that the establishment of the community was not a single event, describing it as a process that would require the active participation of all elements of society.

'€œIn order to maintain ASEAN centrality and role as a driving force in its interactions with external parties, ASEAN should set up notions and regulations to maintain the dynamic equilibrium in the region,'€ Puja said.

'€œThis is where Indonesia could and should play a part,'€ Puja added.