Excellencies,
        Distinguished Speakers and Participants,
        Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Government and people of Indonesia, I heartily welcome you all to this Fourth ASEAN-UN Conference.

Let me take this opportunity to commend the Department of Political Affairs of the UN Secretariat, the United Nations Development Programme, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies of Indonesia, the ASEAN Secretariat, and my colleagues from the Department of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia for organizing this Conference. We deeply appreciate all the hard work that they have done to make this Conference a reality.

We convene today to exchange views, insights and experiences on the crucial theme of "Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution, and Peace-building in Southeast Asia: ASEAN Security Community and the UN." This is a timely subject for both the ASEAN region and the United Nations. In view of recent global developments, we do need to review the agenda for peace in our region as well as the agenda for peace of the United Nations and see how these two can be addressed together in the most practicable and effective ways.

The question of whether there can be a feasible partnership between the United Nations and regional organizations in the difficult task of ensuring global security is an issue that arose even before the UN came into existence. While the Second World War was still raging and the allied nations were consulting on a projected World Organization, one of the many short-lived proposals was that the Security Council should be composed of regional organizations.

A parallel view was that of then Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, who argued at the San Francisco Conference of 1945 that "there should be several regional councils, august but subordinate, and these should form the massive pillars upon which the world organization would be founded in majesty and calm."

Although regional organizations were not embedded in the structure of the United Nations, they were considered vital enough to the cause of peace to rate special mention in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Thus, Chapter VIII has made it clear that nothing in the Charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with matters on the maintenance of international peace and security.

Unfortunately, for many years, Cold War rivalry, compounded by the inadequacies of regional organizations, stunted the development of a partnership between the United Nations and regional organizations in the cause of peace and security. Today, however, there has been a sea change in the situation of many regional organizations, including ASEAN. The United Nations is now working under vastly different kinds of pressures. Many endeavours in the cause of peace that were not feasible several decades ago have become imperative today.

When ASEAN was born in 1967, the security and stability of Southeast Asia were foremost in the minds of its founding fathers. And yet its founding document, the Bangkok Declaration of 1967, puts the greatest emphasis on collaboration in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields, and gives no hint of any intended initiative by way of cooperation in the politico-security field.

This diffidence was only natural: ASEAN's founding members hardly knew each other, having been isolated from one another by centuries of colonial rule. A number of them had disputes with each other that could, at that time, break into armed conflict. Moreover, they did not want the rest of Southeast Asia to mistake the fledgling Association for a military alliance.

So the subject of security, while always urgent, was a highly sensitive one and could not be directly addressed. For years, the members of ASEAN approached the matter of security not through political cooperation but indirectly by way of cooperation in the economic, social and cultural fields. The habit of cooperation would lead to trust, which is conducive to peace.

It would take all of nine years before ASEAN could address the issue of peace, security and stability in a more direct way; this breakthrough took place at its first Summit on 24 February 1976 in Bali. There the ASEAN Leaders adopted the First Declaration of ASEAN Concord, which unfurled the political objectives of ASEAN and launched a comprehensive programme of cooperation in the political, economic and social fields.

During the same Summit, the ASEAN Leaders signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, thereby adopting a Code of Conduct in relations between states based on mutual respect for sovereignty, renunciation of the use of force, and effective cooperation in the economic, social, technical, scientific and administrative fields as well as in the work for peace. It also provided for a peaceful procedure for settling disputes among parties to the Treaty through the mechanism of a High Council.

Still, even after the first Bali Summit, the emphasis in the work of ASEAN remained on cooperation in the economic, social and cultural fields. The Declaration on Southeast Asia as a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), which was adopted in Kuala Lumpur in 1971, asserted ASEAN's determination not to be dominated by foreign powers, but security concerns were not discussed within ASEAN itself. They were discussed on a bilateral or trilateral basis.

Then came the crisis in Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s. It was then that ASEAN and the United Nations crossed paths in their search for a peaceful solution to the crisis. In the late 1980s, ASEAN, with Indonesia as interlocutor, sought to engage Vietnam in a dialogue on Cambodia and the latter positively responded. This initiative led to the Jakarta Informal Meetings where the four battling Cambodian factions were able to at least begin a dialogue.

The arduous process took a long time and involved the active participation of the UN Secretary-General, the five permanent members of the UN Security Councils, and many nations. Finally, at the 19-nation Paris Conference on Cambodia in October 1991, a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict was signed, paving the way to elections under the supervision of the UN Transitional Authority on Cambodia and the rebirth of the Kingdom of Cambodia. Since then, in spite of a lapse marked by a brief civil war, Cambodia has become the tenth member of ASEAN.

ASEAN's successful partnership with the United Nations in bringing to a peaceful end to more than two decades of internecine conflict in Cambodia encouraged the Association to venture further into politico-security cooperation. The Singapore Summit of 1992 declared that "ASEAN shall seek avenues to engage Member states in new areas of cooperation in security matters." This led to the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Bangkok in 1994. The ARF now serves as an important multilateral consultative forum for the promotion of preventive diplomacy and confidence building among the states that have a security impact on the Asia Pacific region.

In spite of these positive developments, ASEAN cooperation in the politico-security field has not matched the pace that it has set in the economic field since the 1970s. It has been able to establish an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and is well on its way to becoming a single ASEAN Investment Area (AIA), while moving towards closer economic integration with its Northeast Asian partners. And just last year, the decision was taken that ASEAN should evolve into an ASEAN Economic Community.

We take pride in the achievements of ASEAN in economic cooperation. Since the birth of ASEAN in 1967, the region has enjoyed unprecedented rates of economic growth that have been well above the global average. And its strategy of working for peace by way of cooperation in the economic and socio-cultural fields has to a large extent worked: the region has been enjoying a period of relative peace.

But given the unique array of security challenges that we in ASEAN face today, there is a crying need for balance. Most conflicts in the world today are not between states but within states, and internal strife has a way of spilling over from the embattled country to the rest of the region. Transnational crime looms larger than it has ever done, as criminal syndicates have become better organized, better trained and better equipped to trade in drugs, people smuggling, money laundering and piracy.

Even more horrible is the related threat of international terrorism, which is capable not only of bloody carnage but also of paralysing entire societies. The terrorists who carried out the Bali bombing of 12 October 2002 killed more than 200 individuals of various nationalities; they also almost succeeded in killing the tourist industry of the Asia-Pacific region. By the time that we could control the SARS epidemic last year, it had dealt a terrible blow on the region's economies.

While nations wrestle with these more recent transnational threats, traditional security issues still remain unresolved. Prominent among the latter is the on-going tension between unilateral and multilateral tendencies. In this connection, it would appear self-evident that unilateralism is often abetted by the inability of regional countries to effectively address their own security problems.

To be effective, our response to these traditional and non-traditional challenges to our regional security must be comprehensive. Thus, the Ninth ASEAN Summit in Bali last October adopted the Second Bali Concord, which propels to a higher level ASEAN cooperation as initially provided for in the First Bali Concord at the first Bali Summit almost three decades ago. And in doing so, they decided to pursue in a comprehensive and balanced manner the establishment of an ASEAN Community. The envisaged ASEAN Community will rest on three pillars: an ASEAN Security Community, an ASEAN Economic Community, and an ASEAN Socio-cultural Community.

All three pillars must move forward together in a balanced manner, without any one of them being favoured at the expense of any other. All of them must reinforce one another.

An ASEAN Security Community, which is the focus of this conference, entails an ASEAN family of nations that nurtures common socio-political values and principles, which strengthens its solidarity, resilience and harmony. It entails an ASEAN marked by a "we-feeling" that enables us to discuss with candour sensitive issues and to resolve them amicably instead of relegating them to a back burner. It also entails an ASEAN which takes full responsibility for the security of its own region.

At the same time, we must firm up our common adherence to norms of good conduct enshrined in the various declarations and treaties of ASEAN. We must now carry out in earnest the decisions embodied in the First Bali Concord and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) that resulted from the First ASEAN Summit in Bali in 1976. We must establish or strengthen mechanisms and practices for strengthening political development, shaping and sharing norms, building confidence, preventing disputes and their escalation into conflicts, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and building of peace in post conflict environments. We have to begin developing a regional peacekeeping arrangement, and exploring the establishment of supporting institutions to facilitate efforts to settle conflict.

We must now finally find a way of fulfilling the provision of the TAC stipulating the creation of a High Council for the settlement of disputes. Also of great importance is the provision of the First Bali Concord on legal cooperation, particularly the setting up of an ASEAN-wide extradition system and mutual legal assistance. By faithfully implementing this provision, ASEAN can be so much more effective in fighting terrorism and related transnational crimes.

In our journey toward the attainment of an ASEAN Security Community, the United Nations can and should have an important role to play. We affirmed that great need for a partnership with the United Nations as early as the Singapore Summit of 1992 when ASEAN committed itself to engaging closely with the UN with a view to promoting peace and stability in the region.

Responding positively, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed in a meeting with ASEAN Leaders in Bangkok in 2000 a series of regional roundtable discussions on multilateral aspects of peace and security in the region. Since then, three earlier ASEAN-UN Conferences have taken place-in Bangkok in 2001, in Manila in 2002, and in Singapore in 2003.

It is therefore my fervent hope that in this Conference, the United Nations Secretariat will share with us expertise and insights that will help us build the ASEAN Security Community. We can benefit greatly from the UN's vast experience in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, and peace-building. Moreover, the UN Secretariat can enlighten us on the intricacies of working on the basis of Article 33 and Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter regarding the role of regional organizations in the pacific settlement of disputes.

I also hope that this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership between two exceedingly important forms of political organization in the world today. Each can and will strengthen the other. By working closely together in the cause of security, the United Nations on one hand and a global network of regional organizations on the other can bring about a new rationalization of the UN's basic work. The result could be a more productively integrated Agenda for Peace.

Thank you.