The Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) marked its 42 nd foundingday under the theme “Green Asia” in Jakarta on Aug. 8 to reflect its care aboutthe environment that has been deteriorated by clime change.

“Wecommemorate our 42 nd anniversary, to commemorate achievements we made to ourpeople and the world, just what our founding fathers wanted”, said ASEANSecretary-General Surin Pitsuwan in his opening speech.

TheSecretary-General said climate change has been the top agenda of many countries,governmental bodies and inter-governmental summits.

“That’s why wechoose the topic for our commemoration’s theme today,” he said.

On Aug.7, the ASEAN Committee in Seoul (ACS) which includes heads of ASEAN missionsaccredited to the Republic or Korea also held a meeting at the MalaysianEmbassy.

ACS Chairman, Malaysian Ambassador Ramlan Ibrahim stressed thatASEAN is looking towards deeper integration for an ASEAN Community by 2015,which will link together 560 million people in a 4.48 million sq.km area.

He also talked about the operation of an ASEAN centre in the RoK, which,in his opinion, is a manifestation of development of relations among ASEANmembers and between ASEAN and the RoK.
According to ACS’ press release,ASEAN will continue to boost dialogue cooperation with its 10 partners,including the RoK, China , Japan , Australia , Canada , EU, India , New Zealand, Russia and the US .

The ASEAN consists of 10 members, namely Brunei ,Cambodia , Indonesia , Laos , Malaysia , Myanmar , Singapore , Thailand , thePhilippines and Vietnam./.