Singapore - Asean will establish a Committee of Permanent Representatives similar to the arrangement in the United Nations and European Union in a move to strengthen its Secretariat.
The committee would be set up on Jan 1 next year upon the ratification of the Asean Charter, Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo said at the conclusion yesterday of the Asean Foreign Ministers` Retreat at the Sentosa resort island here.
He said with the establishment of the committee, each Asean member country would appoint an ambassador to the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta and the ambassadors would wield powers of decision, and of committing their governments and countries.
Yeo said the 10-member Asean needed to beef up its Secretariat and Secretary-General Dr Surin Pitsuwan had been given the approval to appoint two more Deputy Secretary-Generals by Nov 1, to ease the workload that had increased substantially in the last few years.
"The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint was signed at the Summit last year and there is a lot of work to be done, especially in anticipation of the Charter being ratified at the end of the year," he said.
The minister said Asean had also agreed to establish high-level panels of officials to draft the terms of reference for the human rights body and to draft the dispute settlement mechanism, both envisaged in the Charter.
The draft terms of reference for the human rights body would be tabled to the foreign ministers when they next meet at the Asean Ministerial Meeting in Singapore in July this year, he said.
Yeo said the retreat meeting also agreed that the ASEAN year would begin from Jan 1 and that would make Thailand as the next host to be in the chair for one and a half years.
The minister also said that he planned to visit North Korea in May this year, and the Asean foreign ministers agreed for him to suggest to the North Korean government to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
Source: web8.bernama.com (25 Februari 2008)
