East Timor and Myanmar issues stall Europe-ASEAN talks
East Timor and Myanmar issues stall Europe-ASEAN talks
SINGAPORE (Reuter): Moves to deepen ties between Europe and Southeast Asia stalled yesterday over how to deal with Myanmar and East Timor, delegates said.
They said senior officials from the 15-nation European Union and the seven members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) could not agree on wording for a final declaration that indirectly deals with the thorny issues.
But Hans van Mierlo, Dutch Foreign Minister and co-chairman of a two-day ASEAN-EU ministerial meeting, said he did not think these issues would delay progress.
"I really think that we will find a solution for that. We will find for both sides a satisfying way of dealing with it," van Mierlo told reporters.
Senior officials said the major topic at the preparatory meeting for the ministerial discussions today and tomorrow was Myanmar, but the fight between Portugal and Indonesia over East Timor was the major stumbling block.
"The Portuguese will not agree any declaration that could bind them to extending relations with Indonesia or ASEAN while perceived human rights problems in East Timor remain unresolved," said an EU official who declined to be named.
The former Portuguese colony of East Timor was integrated into Indonesia in 1976, but the UN still acknowledges Lisbon as the administrator of the territory.
But the single biggest topic of debate yesterday was Myanmar, which has been promised ASEAN membership along with Laos and Cambodia, possibly as early as this year, delegates said. ASEAN groups Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The officials talked about Myanmar for about two-and-a-half hours, Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rodolfo Severino told reporters.
Rights
The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said yesterday political repression and human rights violations in Myanmar last year reached their highest levels since the suppression of a popular uprising at the end of the 1980s.
Myanmar's military government dismissed the scathing Amnesty report as "ridiculous", and called it propaganda for anti-Myanmar organizations.
Myanmar's membership is particularly vexing because the European parliament has repeatedly warned the European Commission -- the EU's executive -- that it will not tolerate dealings with Yangon.
A draft copy of the final declaration obtained by Reuters has two possible endings. One option calls for an action plan to deepen ties. The other is much more muted, underlining the "strong commitment" of both sides to deepen ties.
Foreign ministers will discuss the declaration today and tomorrow.
The economic stakes in improving ties between the two regions are enormous.
ASEAN was the EU's second largest export market in 1995 and third largest trading partner after Japan and the United States.
The EU is the second largest investor after Japan in ASEAN, whose combined population of 400 million represents a potential market larger than Europe.
Van Mierlo said ASEAN and the EU were looking to expand ties to new areas such as the environment, international terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking in addition to deeper trade ties.
"These days are of vital importance for the future," he said. If we leave it to the current trends then we face the possibility that all (this) is going to slow down."
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