We will host the Asean summit in November this year. It will be an occasion to reflect on our achievements collectively and to look at how Asean can maintain its leading role in regional and international cooperation.

International cooperation, multilateralism is indispensable.

Asean is obviously a very important association for us. Over the past 30 years Asean has made great strides in regional cooperation covering a number of areas, although recently it has been under strain because of the financial crisis and other challenges.

There is no conflict between favouring Islamic and traditional values and being more open and international.

To contrast national solidarity and international cooperation as two opposites seems foolish to me.

The war on terror, if this is a war on terror, can only be won by a sincere regional and international cooperation. All have to believe they have something at stake and work together. In the absence of this it will become political and interest-oriented.