Colleagues of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are greatly honoured to have so many of you here join us this morning. This is ASEAN Day. It is the 36th birthday so to speak of ASEAN as an organization and we are truly happy that we are able to see so many of you here to participate in this morning’s proceedings.

We are in challenging times. We have many positive and negative developments hitting us everyday. As we gather here today, our thoughts are also with the victims and families of terrorist attacks in all our societies. On behalf of the Secretariat colleagues here in Jakarta, I would like to convey our condolences and sympathy to the President of the Republic of Indonesia  and her people with the latest attack a few days ago. We should not be deterred by all these threats to our decent societies. We will strengthen our resolve and we will find an appropriate way to deal with these challenges.

Ibu President, 36 years ago we had a small gathering in Bangkok. Five foreign ministers of Southeast Asian countries first got together and they signed a very simply worded declaration. This is called the ASEAN Declaration and since then we have conducted ourselves to carry out our various programmes and organize many different activities based on the ideals and the objectives in this simply worded ASEAN Declaration.

Today, we are here because we have got the gracious host, Indonesia. This building is more than 20 years old now and through these years we have established ASEAN as a credible regional organization. We hope to do more and with the help of all the ASEAN Member Countries as well as Dialogue Partners and Friends of ASEAN, I am sure that we can contribute more significantly to the peace, stability and prosperity of our people in Southeast Asia.

ASEAN has progressed tremendously due in no small part to the leading role played by Indonesia. When we talk about the progress of ASEAN and the development of ASEAN we cannot but always remind ourselves of the leading influence and the constructive contribution of Indonesia in ASEAN.

Therefore when we were deliberating earlier this year what do we do to commemorate our 36th birthday, we thought that it would be timely for us to organize the inaugural ASEAN Lecture. This will be an opportunity, an occasion for the Leaders of ASEAN to talk about significant issues and strategic matters which can affect the growth of ASEAN and the impact on our people. Hence, we have today’s ASEAN Lecture. We hope that this vision will start from now and every year on ASEAN Day when we can have a stimulating and inspiring speech by our ASEAN Leaders and dignitaries.

We are very privileged and thankful for President Megawati to agree to deliver this inaugural lecture and we are hoping to hear from her very soon.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think President Megawati Soekarnoputri needs no introduction and now may I invite you to listen to her address but before that I wish to, on behalf of the ASEAN Secretariat, present a little memento an engraving of a very important part of the simply worded ASEAN Declaration. We hope that this will sit on the desk of the President and always inspire her to continue Indonesia’s leading role in ASEAN and Im very sure we’ll have a very good future ahead of us.

Thank you very much.