ASEAN ministers to meet in KL on new members

JAKARTA (JP): The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold a special meeting next week in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the admission of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar as full members.

Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas said yesterday that the meeting would discuss reports from ASEAN secretariat general and from the countries' economic ministers.

The ministers are also scheduled to hold its annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur next July. Malaysia is the current chairman of the association which also includes Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

"Our main agenda is to decide on our recommendation to our heads of governments about the timing of their entry," said foreign minister Ali Alatas yesterday after swearing in Nugroho Wisnumurti as the foreign ministry's director general for political affairs.

The leaders of ASEAN agreed in its first informal summit in Jakarta last year to admit the three countries simultaneously without mentioning the exact timing of their entry.

The U.S. State Department's spokesman Nicholas Burns' said last Saturday that the U.S. would lobby ASEAN against admitting Myanmar on account of Yangon's poor human rights record.

Burns said the U.S. had very strong concerns about the plan to include Myanmar, although it had no objection to the other two countries.

President Bill Clinton approved economic sanctions against Myanmar last week due to human rights abuses by its military government.

The U.S. and other western countries have criticized Myanmar for failing to recognize the democratically-elected government of the opposition National League for Democracy, which was co- founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

In reaction to the sanction, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said last week that, "we are trying very hard to get Myanmar into ASEAN".

Thailand's Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh also said that the U.S. sanctions would not affect Yangon's entry into ASEAN.

"ASEAN will not change its position just because of the pressures. Our position will be based on objective criteria," Alatas said.

In a visit to the three countries in February, President Soeharto assured them of Indonesia's support of their plan to become full members of the association.

Soeharto is the only founding father of ASEAN who is still in power. The group was established in August 1967.

In last year's summit, Soeharto expressed his hope that all countries in Southeast Asia would be full ASEAN members in its 30th anniversary this year.

ASEAN will celebrate the group's 30th anniversary at the second informal summit in Kuala Lumpur in December this year. The summit will be attended by its 10 ASEAN members.

Nugroho Wisnumurti was sworn in yesterday as the foreign ministry's director general for political affairs. He replaced Izhar Ibrahim who will become Indonesia's new ambassador to Germany.

Nugroho, 57, had just completed his assignment as Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the United Nations for five years. He was elected the United Nations Security Council's president in August 1995 and November 1996.

Alatas said Nugroho would be replaced at the United Nations by his deputy Makarim Wibisono. (06)

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