The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an open platform for constructive dialogue and consultation, contributing significantly to the regional peace and stability.
The comments were made by Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia in his ASEAN Day Message on Aug. 8.
“It is true that ASEAN cannot guarantee the absence of wars and conflicts, but at least ASEAN has served as an open platform for constructive dialogue and consultation, which has enormously contributed to upholding peace and stability in the region,” he said, adding that the enormous achievements to date underline the strong commitment and political will of ASEAN Leaders to preserve peace and stability, and to bring economic prosperity to an ASEAN Community embodied in the spirit of unity and solidarity.”
“The 8th August 2022 marks an auspicious day as we celebrate the 55th Anniversary of ASEAN as a regional grouping. This great milestone along our long journey brings us closer to our vision of building a people-centred, people-oriented and forward-looking ASEAN Community that leaves no one behind,” the Premier continued.
In the last 5 decades and a half, he said, ASEAN has transformed itself from a loose arrangement to a closely-knitted and rule-based organisation. It has navigated through tremendous changes in regional and global political landscapes and has emerged wiser and stronger as a family.
According to Samdech Techo Hun Sen, more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN have managed to overcome this global crisis and its adverse effects on public health, social, economic and the daily livelihood of the people. ASEAN has come up with many initiatives to curb the impacts of this health crisis by adopting a broad ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework to safeguard people’s lives, to maintain social stability and economic growth. “We can safely say that we are now in the recovering phase,” he said.
In terms of outward-looking activities and strengthening relations with the Dialogue Partners, he stressed, ASEAN has established a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Australia and China. This year, we celebrate the 30th Anniversary of ASEAN-India relations and designate 2022 as ASEAN-India Friendship Year. We had a Special ASEAN-U.S. Summit to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of ASEAN-U.S. relations and we are committed to elevate these relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership at the 10th ASEAN-U.S. Summit in November. We had the first ASEAN-UK Foreign Ministers’ Meeting this year since UK became our 11th Dialogue Partner and we have planned for more commemorative events with our Dialogue Partners later this year.
“Ultimately, ASEAN needs to stand by on our unity for cooperation and mutual interest. We will strive to focus on actions that bind us together for greater prosperity of our region. We will uphold the ASEAN spirit of ‘togetherness’ to consolidate our efforts, internally within ASEAN and externally with our External Partners, to enhance the ASEAN solidarity and resilience so that we can achieve our goals of building a resilient ASEAN Community Vision 2025,” he said. “In sum, we believe that ASEAN can forge ahead with strength, solidarity, and friendship to overcome all the challenges that are facing us for the common good of our peoples and our region, in line with the core spirit of ASEAN: ‘One Vision, One Identity, One Community’.”
