US assures commitment to ASEAN

Endy Bayuni, The Jakarta Post, New York | Fri, 09/24/2010 10:50 PM

As President Barack Obama began hosting a meeting with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday, one of his senior aides gave assurances that Washington is deeply committed to building its relations with the dynamic region.

Obama is seeking to institutionalize the US-ASEAN summit as a way of reaffirming this relationship, Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for Asia Pacific Affairs, told a breakfast meeting hosted by the US-ASEAN Business Council just hours before the summit was to begin.

Obama is also committed to attend the East Asia Summit in 2011, an-ASEAN driven regional organization which the United States hoped to join next year, Campbell said, adding that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be going to Hanoi for this year's EAS in November as an observer.

As Indonesia will be hosting the 2011 EAS, Campbell's statement implies that Obama will be traveling to Indonesia again next year. The President on Thursday disclosed in his speech at the UN General Assembly that he is adding Indonesia to his next Asian tour in November which originally included only India, South Korea and Japan.

All fingers will be crossed in Washington and Jakarta that the trip to Indonesia will take place this November. Obama was forced to cancel his trip to Indonesia on two occasions this year because of pressing domestic problems.

The US-ASEAN summit was held on the sidelines of the General Assembly, but the absence of Indonesia's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono somewhat undermined the gathering. Vice President Boediono represented Indonesia at the summit.

Campbell said Obama wanted to signal to his ASEAN guests that the United States was seeking to play a greater role in the development of Asia and Southeast Asia.

ASEAN diplomats said the summit will issue a joint statement which will include a reference to the situation in the South China Sea, an area many see as a potential flashpoint given the overlapping territorial claims over the Spratley Islands by several countries, including China but not Indonesia.