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.