ASEAN leaders may deal with crisis

ASEAN leaders may deal with crisis

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Senior ASEAN officials prepared yesterday for a summit of Asian leaders expected to be dominated by the economic crisis facing the region.

"The officials have already started meeting in the final run of preparations for the meeting of the summit," said ASEAN Secretary General Ajit Singh.

Leaders from the nine-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are being joined by China's President Jiang Zemin and the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea for the informal summit in the 30th anniversary year of the grouping.

The first ASEAN leaders to arrive in Kuala Lumpur were Senior General Than Shwe, chairman of Myanmar's State Peace and Development Council and the country's prime minister, and Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.

Other leaders were due on Sunday, most arriving in time for an informal dinner hosted by Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The summit will be held tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

ASEAN now comprises Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos, with Cambodia still waiting on the sidelines for a politically appropriate time to take up membership.

But the only Southeast Asian leader when ASEAN was founded in 1967 who is still in power, Indonesia's President Soeharto, is staying away from the informal summit on doctors' orders -- although ASEAN sources said he was still under pressure to attend.

Indonesian and ASEAN sources said he was suffering from a stomach upset after doctors told the 76-year-old leader last week to take a rest following a strenuous 12-day tour to southern Africa, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign Minister Ali Alatas will represent Indonesia.

The meeting will be the first gathering of ASEAN government chiefs since the economic crisis burst over the region in July. ASEAN sources said the currency crisis would be one of the top items for discussion.

Another more congenial topic will be a political and economic vision for ASEAN looking towards the year 2020. Sources said the final details of the vision had been settled for the approval of the group's leaders.

Another topic will be peace and stability, including progress on a treaty establishing a nuclear weapons free zone which most ASEAN members have already ratified.

ASEAN sources said China and the grouping were expected to issue a political declaration covering peaceful coexistence and the principles enunciated in the treaty of amity and cooperation in force between ASEAN members.

ASEAN and Japan were due to announce a general agreement on strengthening regional cooperation in political, economic and security matters, the sources said.

They said ASEAN was also expected to provide some expression of support for the Korean Energy Development Organization aimed at supporting the peaceful use of nuclear energy in North Korea.

The sources said the issue of Cambodia would likely arise after the decision in July to delay its membership in ASEAN until there was a clarification of the political situation there.

The refusal of the European Union to accept Myanmar's participation in EU-ASEAN meetings was another possible topic. Western nations, including the EU and the United States, have been hostile to Myanmar's membership in ASEAN over record of Yangon's military rulers on human rights and democracy issues.