ASEAN is looking for ways to make its peace and reconciliation body effective in helping to resolve conflict, as the grouping committed to creating and maintaining peace and stability in the region.

ASEAN leaders launched the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR), aiming at reviewing ASEAN cooperation and contributing to peace and reconciliation, during a summit in November 2012.

“The challenge facing us now is how to operationalize the AIPR in an effective and sustainable manner. To deliver on its mandate, the AIPR should have adequate financial and human resources and enjoy good collaboration with relevant institutions and partners,” ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh said in his opening remarks of the ASEAN-UN Workshop on “Lessons Learned and Best Practices in Conflict Prevention and Preventive Diplomacy” in
Jakarta on Friday.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and UN Under-Secretary-General Vijay Nambiar also gave remarks.

Marty said that the region must nurture the strongest common political will to address any potential conflict in the region in a timely fashion.

Marty said that for Indonesia, ASEAN constituted an inseparable part of its foreign policy — past, present and future. He said that ASEAN should shape and mold development and not just respond to such issues.

“ASEAN must continue to remain a net contributor to international peace and security,” he said.

Communications and dialogue, he added, were critical and fundamental necessities — especially when crises loomed, so as to build mutual trust and confidence.

The ASEAN region also can offer another lessons learned: democratic change, most recently evinced in Myanmar, as its contribution to the region’s peace and security.

Nambiar said that Myanmar had witnessed the most dramatic transformation among the countries in the region.

“The country has been going through a major process of democratization over the past few years. So it is important that the government of Myanmar faces these issues frontally, and tries to see them within the context of the democratization process that is taking place,” he added.

He underlined that there was a fair amount of determination within the government in addressing both immediate as well as the longer term issues, including sectarian unrest.

The workshop is a follow-up to the ASEAN-UN Comprehensive Partnership agreed to in Bali in 2011. The objective of the workshop is to review experiences in conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy and to identify concrete follow-up activities between ASEAN and the UN.

Some 50 senior officials from ASEAN member states and the UN, as well as regional think tanks are participating in the two-day workshop in Jakarta from April 5 to 6 to discuss cooperation enhancement in conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy in the region. (asw)

Popular

Indonesian workers in Japan face growing stigma after viral incidents

Danantara unveils sweeping reforms for SOE executive bonuses, incentives

Israel's far-right minister says he prayed at Al Aqsa mosque compound