Asian security forum to discuss N. Korea

Asian security forum to discuss N. Korea

P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse/Washington

With the Korean nuclear talks in limbo for more than a year,
officials are looking at the Asia-Pacific region's biggest
official security forum this month to help break the deadlock.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ministerial meeting will
convene in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on July 29, in
conjunction with the annual ministerial talks of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

All members of the six-party talks aimed at ending North
Korea's nuclear weapons program -- the United States, China, the
two Koreas, Russia and Japan -- are in the 24-member ARF.

"My guess is that the foreign minister of North Korea will
come again this year. We hope that he does because it would help
to have more meaningful discussions," ASEAN Secretary-General Ong
Keng Yong told AFP in Washington.

"Every year they will not tell us until the very last minute.
But we believe the North Koreans see a value in the ASEAN
Regional Forum," Ong said.

It is believed North Korea had assured Laos that Foreign
Minister Paek Nam-Sun would attend the ARF talks. The two are
communist states.

Last year, Colin Powell, then U.S. Secretary of State, and
Paek met on the ARF sidelines in Indonesia's capital Jakarta to
review proposals for ending their nuclear standoff in the
highest-level talks between the countries in two years.

Both sides acknowledged that deep mutual mistrust stood in the
way of a quick resolution to the crisis but reconfirmed their
commitment to reaching a deal to rid the Korean peninsula of
nuclear weapons.

But two months later, North Korea rejected a U.S. aid-for-
disarmament plan and refused to attend the fourth round of the
six-party talks hosted by China, blaming what it called U.S.
hostility and insincerity.

With the six-party talks in a stalemate, the ARF seems to be
the only regional forum where North Korea can be directly engaged
on its nuclear ambitions, officials say.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who called North
Korea an "outpost of tyranny" in January, is unlikely to attend
the ARF talks this year and is expected to be represented by her
deputy Robert Zoellick, diplomatic sources said.

North Korea has asked Rice to withdraw her description of the
hardline communist state but the top U.S. diplomat stood by her
affirmation, saying the nature of the North Korean regime is
"self-evident."

Rice is reportedly planning a North Asian tour next week
covering China, South Korea and Japan to discuss the nuclear
crisis.

A U.S. State Department official admitted that the backdrop
for a possible meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials at
the ARF sidelines this year was "different" from that of 2004.

"Last year (the meeting was in a) different context," the
official told AFP, in an apparent reference to the murky
atmosphere following North Korea's decision to boycott the six-
party talks two months after the Powell meeting.

Washington believes North Korea has one or two nuclear bombs
and may have reprocessed enough plutonium for half a dozen more,
from spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

ASEAN's Ong cautioned against expecting too much from the ARF
on the nuclear issue.

"The priority is to get back to the six party talks," he said.
"Those of us who are not in the six party talks have little
leverage over North Korea. Even those in the six party talks have
limited leverage," he said, apparently referring to China.

"It's a good forum to air views and consider possible options
to solve difficulties but to expect more than that from the ARF
will be a bit unrealistic," he said.

The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002 when Washington
accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons program based on
enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement. On Feb. 10
this year, North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons.