He made the remarks at a discussion organized by the Indonesian Embassy in London in cooperation with The Henry Jackson Society, a political think thank based in London, Novan Ivanhoe Saleh, the embassy`s first secretary, said in a statement on Sunday.
The CSIS executive director was in London to attend an international conference on global conflict-future trends and challenges: towards 2030. The embassy took advantage of the event to speak of Indonesia`s strength in ASEAN in 2011.
At the discussion, Rizal spoke of the policies and agenda of Indonesia as the current ASEAN chair to lay foundations for ASEAN`s direction and position among regional communities in the world after 2015.
He said that the agenda included the accelerated implementation of all documents and declarations already agreed upon by 10 ASEAN member states, and ASEAN`s efforts to get actively involved in orchestrating regional development in Asia and the Pacific.
In addition, Indonesia was also trying to direct ASEAN to be always useful and relevant to other regional communities in the world after 2015, he said.
The other concrete agenda Indonesia was pursuing during its current ASEAN chairmanship was improving the regional grouping`s performance and regional architectural capacity in the sphere of human rights, he said.
Acting as a moderator at the discussion was John Spellar of the Labor Party, one-time minister of state for Northern Ireland and minister of transportation who is currently Shadow Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister.
Participants of the discussion included members of parliament, diplomatic corps, political think thank, students and non-governmental organization activists. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
