Asian-African Parliamentary Forum Established
30 November -0001 00:00 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – The Asian-African Parliamentary Conference has agreed to establish a parliamentary forum of Asian-African countries. The forum, dubbed the Asian-African Parliamentary, will have a secretariat in Indonesia.
“We agreed to hold a meeting once a year in a selected country,” said House of Representatives speaker Setya Novanto on Thursday.
Setya said the forum was key to support the government in each country to achieve the goals of the Asian-African Conference (AAC), which are solidarity, peace and prosperity. “Parliament is the representatives of the people. Dialogue in the parliament is important to achieve common goals,” saod Setya.
The Parliamentary Conference is the first in the AAC, which has yielded the Asian-African Press Conference and the Asian-African Youth Conference. “There has never been a parliament. This is important to achieve strategic goals.”
The Parliamentary Conference issued a declaration titled “Towards stronger partnership for world peace and prosperity”, consisting of 25 points and signed by 31 delegates.
One of the points is called solidarity for Palestine. The Asian-African Parliamentary also agreed to fully support Palestinian independence and each other to face trans-national crimes, climate change, natural disasters and human and drug trafficking.
Among the countries signing the declaration were Syria, Palestine, Laos, Malaysia, Madagascar, Vietnam and Kenya.
INDRI MAULIDAR
