Asia's top security forum to tackle sea terror, North Korea
Asia's top security forum to tackle sea terror, North Korea
Jane Macartney, Reuters, Singapore
Southeast Asian ministers from kingdoms, juntas and huge Muslim states will strive to agree this week with colleagues from the United States and North Asia on how to secure one of the world's busiest waterways against terrorism.
Scarcely a doubt lingers that the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its 13 partners at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) security meeting will come up with a formula to underscore a determination to protect the narrow Malacca Strait.
Whether they can advance to a consensus to tackle terror in a region hit by one of the deadliest attacks since the Sept. 11 strikes may matter as much as whether some foreign ministers can bury their differences long enough to share a cup of coffee.
All eyes will be on U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun to see if they repeat a brief 15-minute chat over coffee two years ago and thus mark the highest-level contact since 2002 between the arch-foes.
Paek said he was "too busy" to attend ARF last year in Phnom Penh or in 2001 in Hanoi, but has promised to come this year.
A meeting with Powell, days after six-party talks in Beijing on North Korea's nuclear ambitions ended with signs of a start to real negotiations, offers an "opportunity for further discussion", said Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuanketkeow.
"More happens on the sidelines, and these bilaterals can be very important," said ASEAN regional expert Ralf Emmers of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.
No one expects a chat over a chance cup of coffee to enable Powell and North Korea's Paek to achieve progress that has eluded negotiators since the North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in 2002.
However, a few more minutes of personal contact would at least allow each to size up the other as the two countries take stock of proposals for a freeze, rewards and eventual dismantling that were placed on the table last week in Beijing.
That is one of the advantages of a meeting dismissed by many as a mere talking shop, said former ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino.
"If you don't talk, then you have nothing," said another senior regional diplomat.
Other members of ASEAN will doubtless chat with Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung. What is in doubt is whether ministers from Europe and the United States will be willing to shake hands with the representative of a junta that has come in for criticism at successive meetings for its failure to introduce democracy or to free Nobel prize-winning activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
"What is the alternative to not having Myanmar in?" said Severino. "Is it better than having it out?
"At the time it was viewed as a good thing," he said of Myanmar's 1997 admission to the group. "Although now, with the benefit of hindsight, there are different views."
Officials of several ASEAN members privately express embarrassment, especially with Myanmar -- also known as Burma -- due to take over the chair of ASEAN in 2006.
"I would expect considerable discussion on Burma," U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
ASEAN has long followed a policy of engagement with Myanmar, but inched away from its longstanding policy of non-interference in a member's domestic affairs by censuring the junta last year.
"Some countries will want to bring up Myanmar," said the Thai official. "We've had some talks before on Myanmar and there have never been fireworks. The dialog has always been civilized and constructive."
Where discussion is certain to be civil is on maritime security, more specifically policing of the Malacca Strait through which ships carry more than one quarter of world trade.