Big talks, little progress at ASEAN summit
Updated
This week's ASEAN Regional Forum, the region's major security dialogue, covered topics including North Korea and regional responses to natural disasters.
Presenter: Karon Snowdon
Speakers: Kao Kim Hourn, Cambodia's Secretary of State for the Foreign Ministry; China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi; North Korean Foreign Minister's spokesman Ri Tong Il; ASEAN's Secretary General, Surin Pitsuwan; New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters; US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.
SNOWDON: ASEAN's Regional Forum attracts senior ministers from 27 nations. Australia's Stephen Smith attended and said he didn't get the cold shoulder over Australia's suggestion for a future new Asia Pacific Forum.
This year's meeting in Singapore got underway as hundreds of troops from Cambodia and Thailand, faced each other over their disputed border. After a photo session, where forum participants held hands, US Secretary of States, Condoleeza Rice, called for the peaceful resolution to the Thai-Cambodia dispute. It's to be discussed for the second time in as many days in the United Nations Security Council, after Cambodia called on the UN to help.
Kao Kim Hourn is Cambodia's Secretary of State for the Foreign Ministry.
HOURN: "We're trying to set up the ASEAN contact group, and we failed to do that at this meeting in Singapore. So in Cambodia right now, my Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong, he has taken up our country has taken up this issue to the UN Security Council.
SNOWDON: Thailand is resisting outside mediation and the ASEAN meeting resolved nothing.
Delegates say there was better progress on North Korea's nuclear disarmament. In the first cabinet level talks between the US and Pyongyang's top diplomat, Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday met with Foreign Minister, Pak Ui-chun, joined by the four other members of the six party talks, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, which have been working since 2003 to convince the North to dismantle its nuclear program.
China's Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, described the informal meeting as quite significant in which major issues were discussed in a frank and pro-active manner, ahead of a resumption of negotiations in Beijing.
He said this in itelf shows that the six parties have the political will to move forward the six party talks process.
SNOWDON: A spokesman for North Korea's Pak Ui-chun, said Pyongyang will meet its undertakings after the other parties implement theirs, on the principle of action-for-action.
HUNG: The minister, Pak Ui-chun, he emphasised the need for full implementation by six parties under the September 19th joint statement, and he further expressed the willingness of the DPRK Government to fully implement closely following the implementation of the other parties on the principle of action-for-action.
SNOWDON: While North Korea is still to agree to a verification process on dismantling its nuclear facilities, ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan welcomed ongoing talks.
PITSUWAN: I think we all feel that we would like to support and see the process of denuclearisation going on as smoothly as possible.
SNOWDON: In a move interpreted as it wanting to be seen as a more responsible international player, North Korea signed ASEAN's 30 year old treaty of amity and cooperation, on which its ten members and associates base their relations.
The ASEAN Forum also set itself the task to access the region's ability to respond to natural disasters, in a year in which China's earthquake and Burma's cyclone cost hundreds-of-thousands of lives.
The group had been earlier criticised for not pressuring Burma to allow relief workers into the country after the devastating Cyclone Nargis, in May.
New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Winston Peters.
PETERS: Myanmar in the end had to accept that they were absolutely derelict in their responsibilities to their people, that the international opprobrium was too much.
SNOWDON: Burma once again took up considerable time at the meeting. Condoleezza Rice described it as being badly out of step with the world community and the ASEAN charter on human rights, which it has ratified.
Dr Rice expressed her hope that Burma's neighbours would press the junta for democratic reform.
RICE: It is in the interest of the people of Burma and of ASEAN, as an organisation to persuade the leaders there to release all political prisoners, and to begin a genuine time bound dialogue with democratic and ethnic minority leaders on a credible transition to democracy.
SNOWDON: ASEAN's statement on Burma earlier this week was reported as a watered down version of its first attempt to express its deep disappointment over democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's continuing detention. And on a much lighter note, there was no word on whether the foreign ministers were disappointed at their host Singapore's decision with tradition and ban the karaoke at the closing night dinner. Although held behind closed doors, details always manage to leak out about which of the ministers who took to the stage to entertain their fellow diplomats was the most uninhibited or could best hold a tune.
