Copenhagen gears up for ASEM summit
Copenhagen gears up for ASEM summit
Robert Wielaard, Associated Press, Brussels
Twenty-five European Union (EU) and Asian leaders open a two-day
summit known as Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Copenhagen on
Monday to discuss the fight against terrorism, American pressure
for a war against Iraq and the tough road to a global trade
agreement by 2005.
The leaders will stress the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against
New York and Washington was no "clash of cultures" between Islam
and the West.
They will agree to work "closely together to combat the
terrorist threat to global peace," Danish Prime Minister Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, the meeting host, said in an interview published
Friday in the English-language weekly Copenhagen Post.
The summit is the fourth since 1996 when European and Asian
leaders agreed to foster closer ties to rival America's trade and
political links with Asia.
The leaders of Japan, China, South Korea and seven members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations - Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - are
to meet among themselves on Sunday.
On Monday, the leaders of the 15 EU nations - Germany, France,
Italy, Spain, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg,
Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Austria -
join them for two days of talks.
EU officials say they have steadily improved relations with
Asia. They cite cooperative programs - from illegal immigration
to child welfare, from human rights to environmental protection -
a fast maturing political dialogue and two-way trade that surged
to nearly 361 billion euros (dollars) in 2001, up 40 percent from
1997 when a financial crisis swept Asian nations.
Last year, Asia accounted for 20 percent of EU exports. And EU
markets matter greatly to Asia, whose trade surplus with Western
Europe rose from US$28.5 billion in 1995 to $122 billion in 2000.
In the political realm, the EU claims some credit for guiding
the two Koreas toward reconciliation and for helping East Timor
win independence from Indonesia.
They will also likely hail agreement by North Korea and Japan
to discuss forging diplomatic ties after leaders from the two
countries issued mutual apologies for mistakes that prompted
decades of strained relations at a summit this week.
The EU and Asian leaders will likely discuss U.S. pressure for
a war against Iraq, which the United States claims is developing
weapons of mass destruction. Wary of charges in Muslim countries
that another Iraq war will prove the West is on an anti-Islam
crusade, the EU side will pursue "a fresh angle" in the war on
terrorism debate.
An EU-drafted, pre-summit paper states that debate must focus
on "how Asia and Europe might cooperate in dealing with the
consequences" of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The leaders will also discuss security in their respective
areas.
The Copenhagen summit will also debate the difficult
negotiations for a new global trade agreement by 2005. "The
negotiations are not going as fast as we would like," a senior EU
official who asked not to be named, said ahead of the summit.
Some Southeast Asian nations, especially Singapore, want the
EU to sign bilateral free trade accords. The Europeans reject
that for fear of accentuating already vast economic differences
in Asia and wants Asian nations to develop closer economic ties
with one another.