Arms controls talks in ASEAN proposed

Arms controls talks in ASEAN proposed

MANILA (Agencies): A proposal to include arms controls talks in the agenda of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has been made at a regional security conference in the Philippine capital, an official said yesterday.

Gerd Langguth, executive chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, sponsor of the two-day forum said this was among the issues raised at the forum attended by delegates from the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China and other regional powers.

Delegates noted that the "ASEAN enjoys a unique era of stability and security" but at the same time this was characterized by increasing military build-up and procurement, Langguth said.

"Some scientists made a proposal that arms control be integrated into the ARF," Langguth said, but he did not say how this should be done.

He also would not identify which delegates raised these concerns or which countries were acquiring new weapons.

Tensions in the Korean peninsula, the emerging role of China, and the involvement of the United States in the region were situations that influenced the build-up, delegates said.

"Without the United States in the next years there will be no political and military security in the region," Langguth quoted delegates as saying.

The ARF is a forum for dialog on security matters affecting the South East Asian region.

It includes security experts, academics and government officials from the seven member countries of ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam as well as China, Japan, the United States, Australia, and Germany.

The two-day conference ended yesterday after meetings on the region's security amid modernization and globalization.

It was also organized by Manila's Institute for Strategic and Development Studies with Konrad-Adenauer, a German non-government organization that promote democracy, human and civil rights and equitable development.

Philippine President Fidel Ramos, who addressed the meetings Monday, said China's rise "will unavoidably generate political and military pressures on the Asia-Pacific."

However, economic failure of the world's most populous nation would be "even more alarming," he said.