Crisis in North Korea is an Asian affair: Hassan

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia continues to believe that the nuclear crisis in North Korea should be settled within the framework of an Asian forum, instead of involving the United Nations.

Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said on Tuesday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) was the place to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis.

"We would like to see the settlement of the North Korean crisis arranged within the region and not through other forums, including the UN Security Council (UNSC)," Hassan said, after accompanying President Megawati Soekarnoputri to a bilateral meeting with visiting Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam.

Hassan pointed out that all the countries involved with the North Korean issue were member countries of the forum, which was established to strengthen confidence-building among the member countries and to conduct preventive diplomacy.

The minister was commenting on plans by the UNSC to convene a meeting on the North Korean crisis on Wednesday at the request of the council's permanent members, the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, who met earlier this week.

News agencies reported that the UNSC permanent members failed to agree on a statement condemning North Korea for pulling out of the international nuclear arms control treaty due to opposition from China, which has close ties with Pyongyang, and Russia.

In a meeting with Megawati last February, Pyongyang's number- two leader Kim Yong-nam said that the communist country refused to bring the issue to the UNSC and insisted on bilateral talks with the United States.

Meanwhile, Washington said that the issue should be resolved multilaterally as North Korean's nuclear ambitions were threatening the security of the world.

Despite its own problems, Indonesia has been trying to play the role of middleman to end the nuclear standoff, which became heated after Pyongyang pulled out of the nuclear non- proliferation treaty in January.

Some suspect that North Korea may be the next target of the U.S. after Iraq.

So far, Indonesia's offer to facilitate a dialog has gone unheeded by all of the parties concerned, while the UN has agreed to become involved in the issue despite fresh warnings from Pyongyang that this would only complicate the situation.

Hassan said that Indonesia remained hopeful that a dialog could resolve the Korean crisis, and suggested that the region take the lead in bringing this about.

During the meeting between Megawati and Bolkiah on Tuesday, both leaders exchanged views regarding the situation on the Korean peninsula.

The two leaders expressed the hope that "genuine progress could be made in mutual confidence-building between North and South".

In their joint press statement, the two leaders also underlined the importance of strengthening the ARF as an effective forum for dialog and cooperation regarding the evolving security situation in the region.