Cambodia's entry may be left up to ASEAN leaders

Cambodia's entry may be left up to ASEAN leaders

HANOI (AFP): ASEAN members remained split on Thursday over the timing of Cambodia's admission and may elevate the issue to their leaders' summit next week if foreign ministers fail to reach consensus, officials said.

A statement from Singapore circulated on the eve of the ministers' talks on Friday confirmed that the nine-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had divergent views on when to grant membership to Cambodia.

"The issue is not whether Cambodia should be admitted into ASEAN," a spokesman for the foreign ministry of Singapore, current chair of ASEAN's policy-making standing committee, said in a written reply to media queries.

"That decision had already been taken by ASEAN and there is no change to ASEAN's position. The issue is only one of timing, (that is) whether Cambodia should be admitted at the Hanoi summit," the spokesman said.

"The ASEAN foreign ministers will continue their discussions in Hanoi. If there is still no consensus, the next step would be for the ASEAN leaders to consider the different views of the ASEAN foreign ministers."

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong rejected admission for Cambodia into ASEAN before a coalition government agreement is fully implemented in that country, the Far Eastern Economic Review reported.

Goh's views, excerpts of which were made available in a statement on Thursday, were among the divergent reactions among governments to admitting Cambodia as the 10th member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) during its summit next week in Hanoi.

"I would like to see the full sense of the coalition agreement fully implemented before we admit them to Asean," said Goh in an interview in the newsmagazine's latest issue.

"It's procedural. It's technical. In principle, we want Cambodia to be a member of the ASEAN," he said.

Juanito Jarasa, assistant foreign affairs secretary of the Philippines, said if the foreign ministers are unable to reach any agreement, the leaders will have to make a "political decision" about Cambodia's entry.

The leaders of Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are holding a summit here Dec. 15-16, followed by summits with key Asian partners China, Japan and South Korea.

Cambodia, currently an ASEAN observer, was supposed to join ASEAN in July 1997 but its entry was deferred after strongman Hun Sen ousted co-premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh amid heavy fighting in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia is now claiming its ASEAN seat after the establishment of a new coalition between the two leaders' parties as a result of fresh elections in July. Cambodia's UN seat, vacant for 15 months, is to be given back to the coalition, boosting its international legitimacy.

Summit host Vietnam is pushing hard for the admission of Cambodia and is hosting Prime Minister Hun Sen on an official visit just before the summit. Cambodia's King Sihanouk has also thrown his weight behind the membership bid.

Senior ASEAN diplomats and economic officials who held a joint consultative meeting on Thursday ahead of their foreign ministers steered clear of the Cambodia issue and concentrated on drafting a Hanoi declaration and an action plan on the region's economic problems.

Nugroho Wisnumurti, head of the Indonesian delegation to the pre-summit talks to draft a Hanoi declaration, said the focus of the statement will be on the region's economic crisis.

"We are going to have really concrete measures to try to address the crisis, and for recovery from the crisis," he said on the sidelines of a joint consultative meeting of ASEAN foreign ministry and economic officials.