The crafting of the ASEAN Charter must be based on the sprit of "togetherness" and "we" feeling, Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said Wednesday in KUALA LUMPUR.

He said the proposed charter must bring people together through their active engagement and contributions.

The Malaysia-mooted charter, known as the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN Charter, will be signed on Monday during the 11th summit of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in Kuala Lumpur.

"Togetherness" is something that seems to have eluded ASEAN all these years. The missing ingredient in our interactions has been this "we" feeling between and among the ASEAN people," he said.

While ASEAN has been in existence for 39 years, ASEAN citizens have been perceived as still not having a strong attachment to be labeled as belonging to an ASEAN community, Syed Hamid said at the opening of the ASEAN Civil Society Conference.

As such, ASEAN needs to stress on community building, generation of trust and building of confidence among its people, he said.

Syed Hamid also said that ASEAN leaders, at the 2004 Summit in Vientiane, Laos, had called for a more people-centerd approach to cultivate the sense of belonging among its citizens.

A caring ASEAN community could only be achieved by inculcating understanding and appreciation of the uniqueness and richness of ASEAN cultures and encouraging more people-to-people contact, he said.

Source: Xinhua