SE Asian nations to stay out of Indonesian crisis

SE Asian nations to stay out of Indonesian crisis

HANOI (AFP): Indonesia's Southeast Asian partners will stay out of the political crisis racking the sprawling regional giant but are alert to the possible fallout, a top regional official said on Saturday.

"Unless matters take a really bad turn, I don't think this will have a serious repercussion in the region," Rodolfo Severino, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), told reporters here.

Severino confirmed that ASEAN senior officials, laying the ground for a meeting of their foreign ministers starting in Hanoi Monday, discussed the Indonesian parliament's drive to impeach President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Indonesia is by far the largest member of ASEAN, which also comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The group reaches its decisions by consensus, and has often been criticized for not taking a sterner stand on problems in one country that could affect the others.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said observers must appreciate the ASEAN mandate of non-interference.

"I think everybody is very concerned about political stability in Indonesia but everyone has declared their support for Indonesia," he told AFP in Phnom Penh before leaving for Vietnam.

"I hope they (the Indonesian government) achieve a compromise in order to avoid destabilization which could lead to very negative actions in Indonesia."

Severino said ASEAN would take a hands-off approach to the Indonesian troubles despite having a mechanism to discuss serious problems in one member state that could affect the entire region.

"This is something being dealt with by the Indonesians. We will just have to let them deal with it," he said.

Hassan Wirajuda, head of political affairs at the Indonesian foreign ministry, told the two-day ASEAN senior officials' meeting which ended Saturday that he hoped a peaceful way out of the political crisis would be found.

With Indonesia once again in turmoil, the Cambodian and Vietnamese foreign ministers urged their ASEAN partners not to lose sight of the goal of integrating the group's newer, poorer members with the more advanced.

"Narrowing down the development gap between member countries" would be one of the "major tasks" for ASEAN in the years to come, Vietnam's Nguyen Dy Nien told the senior ASEAN officials as they wrapped up their preparatory talks.

The ministers are due to adopt an Initiative for ASEAN Integration which has been one of the main priorities of Vietnam's year-long tenure of the regional grouping's rotating chairmanship.