New Asian-African Partnership

Asian and African leaders today signed a new Strategic Partnership to ensure peace, stability and security in the two continents by boosting trade and stepping up cooperation in war against terrorism and transnational organised crimes.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and South African leader Thabo Mbeki inked the four-page declaration on the New Asian-African Partnership (NAAP) in this historic town where the countries from the two continents got together for the first time in 1955 and subsequently created the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The leaders from over 100 Asian and African countries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had adopted the declaration at their two-day summit in Jakarta which ended yesterday.

Through the strategic partnership "we will pool together the vast resources and the tremendous creative energies of Asia and Africa to solve some of the most persistent problems of development," Yudhoyono told the signing ceremony.

On the Golden Jubilee of the Bandung Asia-Africa Conference here, the leaders also took a symbolic walk to commemorate the historic event.

In the declaration, the leaders said "we are determined to prevent conflict and resolve disputes by peaceful means and endeavour to explore innovative mechanisms for confidence building and dispute resolution as well as for post-conflict peace building."