ASEM meeting will go ahead despite row: Bot

ASEM meeting will go ahead despite row: Bot

Adianto P. Simamora
The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Visiting Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot expressed confidence
that the upcoming Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) scheduled for
October in Hanoi would go ahead despite the controversy over the
participation of Myanmar.

Speaking at a joint press conference after a bilateral meeting
with his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda in Jakarta on
Thursday, Bot said the Hanoi summit would take place.

"As the president of the European Union (EU), we intend to
organize together this Hanoi summit in a constructive manner,"
Bot, who is the current president of the Council of Ministers of
the European Union, said.

"We are at the moment preparing that meeting, we are making a
catalog of all the problems that have to be solved. We believe
this meeting should take place in Hanoi," he said.

Bot, who was born in Batavia (Jakarta), also met with
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Thursday.

Hassan also expressed optimism the ASEM summit would take
place as scheduled.

"I believe it is in the strong interest of both the Asian side
as well as the European side that we should be able to settle the
issues surrounding the upcoming ASEM summit, in particular, the
questions of participation," he said.

Asked how confident he was the summit would be held, Hassan
said: "I believe it will happen, but let's see on what level. Our
bargaining position is quite high."

Myanmar's partners in the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) have insisted that if the EU wants to include its
10 new states in the summit, Myanmar, along with Cambodia and
Laos, must also be represented.

But EU members have pressed hard for Yangon to be kept out of
the six-year-old forum because of the junta's repression of
political opponents, in particular the house arrest of Aung San
Suu Kyi.

The thorny issue of Myanmar's participation in the Hanoi
summit has posed a challenge to Dutch diplomacy since its took
over the EU presidency on July 1, 2004.

The Netherlands, the former colonial master of Indonesia, sent
former foreign minister Van den Broek to Asia last month on
behalf of the EU to resolve the diplomatic ruckus over Myanmar's
participation in the ASEM summit.

Meanwhile, during the bilateral talks here, both Hassan and
Bot agreed to intensify efforts to combat terrorism.

"Minister Bot has pledged to provide 5 million euros for the
cooperation on combating terrorism, particularly activities to be
carried out by the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement
Cooperation," Hassan said.

The Netherlands is also expected to dispatch Tom Groten Heis,
an expert on counterterrorism, to the Jakarta center to train
Indonesian officers.

The two countries also plan to organize a seminar on the
empowerment of moderate Islam, which Bot said was an important
part of fighting terrorism.

"We have explored how to strengthen the modern Islamic
boarding school system, among other things perhaps enriching
education by providing vocational training for students," Hassan
said.