Southeast Asian leaders agreed at their annual summit on Saturday to create a tighter political bloc, turn their region into a free-trade zone by 2015 and fight harder against terrorism.In a major break with its consensus-based past, the 10-country body has agreed to discuss a plan that would form a more cohesive organisation able to sanction or even expel members that do not follow its rules. The leaders also signed a counterterrorism pact legally binding their countries to share information, and allowing for joint training aimed at stemming terror and cross-border crime. They agreed on the protection of millions of migrant workers, and vowed to shift their energy uses from fossil to biofuels.The summit’s host, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, stressed the need to bolster free trade within ASEAN, which was created in 1967.“ASEAN is committed to expanding its trade forum to become the largest in the world,” Arroyo said in opening the meeting, held under heavy security following three deadly explosions in the southern Philippines days before.The leaders want to establish the free trade zone by 2015, five years earlier than previously proposed. It will be adopted in two stages, with the six richer nations—such as wealthy Singapore and oil-rich Brunei—starting the integration in 2010, and the others following by 2015.China, Japan and South Korea— who will be participating in an expanded summit on Sunday involving ASEAN’s six “dialogue partners”—hope to join the grouping’s economic circle.The other dialogue partners are Australia, New Zealand and India. Implementing the objectives will be a challenge. “Up until now, we have never had a charter,” said former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, a member of the “Eminent Persons Group” that drafted the recommendations. “We will see how the implementation will go.”No date for the charter has been set, but ASEAN is aiming to have something to present at its next summit, slated to be held in Singapore at the end of this year.Also on Saturday, France and East Timor signed a nonaggression pact with ASEAN, a sign of both countries’ hopes for stronger trade and diplomatic ties with the grouping.The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation requires signatories to renounce the use or threat of force against ASEAN members, stresses noninterference in signatories’ internal affairs and allows for arbitration of disputes by a tribunal.France became the 11th country outside ASEAN— and the first European one— to sign the treaty, after Australia, China, India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, South Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Russia. East Timor, meanwhile, has voiced hopes of becoming an ASEAN member within the next few years following the tiny country’s nation-building efforts in the wake of its bloody break from Indonesian rule in 1999.The legally binding ASEAN Convention on Counterterrorism—the first region-wide anti-terrorism edict—is a culmination of anti-terrorism discussions and agreements that began after the attacks on the US of Sept 11, 2001. Terror attacks across Southeast Asia and the rise of Islamic extremist groups like Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf have added impetus to the effort.
