Indonesian Islamic Students to Organize ASEAN Youth Assembly

Jakarta (Antara) - The Indonesian Islamic Student Movement (PMII) will organize ASEAN+9 Youth Assembly in Jakarta on August 26-29. The four-day meeting was part of the movement's efforts to build foreign relations networks and help address international issues particularly in the lead-up to the formation of ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, chief of the event's organizing committee Addin Jauharudin said in a press statement released on Wednesday. Besides leaders of youth organizations in 10 ASEAN member states, the PMII would also invite delegates from ASEAN partners, namely China, India, European Union, Timor Leste, South Korea, Japan, the United States and Australia, as observers, he said. The activity was the movement's initiative to forge people-to-people relations between ASEAN and its partners, he said. "The idea of organizing such forum did not come from the government, donor institutions and non-profit organizations but purely from the PMII after studying the dynamics of geo-politics and economy in the ASEAN region," he said. He expressed hope the theme of the forum "ASEAN +9 Youth Assembly for ASEAN Community 2015" would be able to absorb participation from both domestic and foreign parties particularly government agencies. "The formation of the ASEAN Economic Community will affect the entire ASEAN peoples," he said. The forum would produce ASEAN Youth Charter in response to the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community, he said. The PMII last held an ASEAN youth leaders forum in Jakarta in 2002. (*)