BANGKOK: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has grown tremendously over the years to become the most stable regional organisation in the world, said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“Asean is today the most stable regional organisation in the world, compared with the EU (European Union, which is) having problems,” said Dr Mahathir at the close of the 35th Asean Summit here, today.
He said that the regional grouping’s successes are clearly reflected in many other countries’ desire to join the grouping; as well as the expanding cooperation among member states.
“Asean has grown tremendously, with more areas of cooperation now. So many people want to join us,” the Prime Minister added.
Dr Mahathir said that Asean is reaping the fruits of its vision and cooperation, including being recognised as the “East Asian community”.
“People now refer to Asean +3 (China, Japan and South Korea) as the ‘East Asian community’. So we (Asean) have finally succeeded in being recognised as the East Asian community,” he added.
He described this year’s three-day summit and its related summits, with the theme “Advancing Partnership for Sustainability” as a success, adding that all the meetings, on the whole, went well.
Next year’s Asean Summit will be held in Vietnam, which will take over the chair of the organisation from Thailand.
Asean was founded in 1967 with only five founding members – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Laos and Myanmar were later admitted as the ninth and tenth members of the grouping in July 1997.
In the meantime, Asean has managed to forge a close partnership with six countries in the Asia Pacific region – China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand – which are collectively known as Asean +6.