ARF officials meet in Siem Reap

ARF officials meet in Siem Reap

CAMBODIA: Senior officials from the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) opened talks in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Wednesday that focused on the nuclear crisis in North Korea, officials said.

About 200 senior officials from the 23-member ARF, the region's main security umbrella grouping, are meeting to lay the groundwork for a foreign ministers' summit in the Cambodian capital in June.

North Korea sent two ambassadors-at-large from Pyongyang with a rank equal to deputy minister and diplomats from Phnom Penh to participate in the meeting, while the delegation from South Korea included a deputy foreign minister.

Other senior delegates included Washington's deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Matthew Daley. --AP