Established on August 8, 1967 with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration in Bangkok, Thailand, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations came into being when the foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand gathered to found a regional organization dedicated to promoting economic growth, social progress, and peace across Southeast Asia during a period of Cold War geopolitical tension and post-colonial instability. The founding fathers, Adam Malik of Indonesia, Narciso Ramos of the Philippines, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S. Rajaratnam of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand, created what would grow into an eleven-member bloc after Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste joined over subsequent decades. Today, ASEAN operates from its permanent secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, serving as the central institutional hub for regional diplomacy, economic integration, and multilateral cooperation across Southeast Asia. Today, asean.org is mainly focused on publishing official ASEAN statements, summit declarations, policy frameworks, trade agreements, and institutional news covering all eleven member states from their secretariat headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia. One interesting fact: Timor-Leste became the eleventh and most recent member of ASEAN on October 26, 2025, completing a decades-long accession process that began formally in 2022 and making the young nation, which only gained independence in 2002, the newest member of one of the world's most established regional intergovernmental organizations.