Ghosts of conflicts past haunt key Asian talks

Ghosts of conflicts past haunt key Asian talks

HANOI (Reuters): Southeast Asian foreign ministers met their most powerful neighbors on Tuesday to discuss boosting political and economic cooperation, but the talks were fraught with regional tensions and haunted by ghosts of conflicts past.

The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) wrapped up two days of talks in Hanoi and widened the gathering to include the foreign ministers of China, Japan and South Korea.

On Wednesday, discussions will be broadened to include partners from the 23-member ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia's key security grouping, which includes the United States and the Europe Union.

Indonesia's political turmoil has joined a list of contemporary security worries ranging from the last Cold War frontier in Korea, to territorial disputes in the South China Sea, to President George W. Bush's proposed missile defense system.

But ghosts of the past have proven remarkably resilient. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived on Tuesday for his first return visit to Vietnam since his wartime service in the 1960s.

Powell told a briefing last week he expected a flood of emotions to hit him on his return, 32 years after he left, but said there were "no ghosts within him that needed exorcism".

Arriving at his hotel after being greeted with a bouquet of flowers at Hanoi airport, Powell told reporters: "I was very emotional flying in on an airplane. I am very pleased to be back."

But questions remain over Powell's Vietnam record stemming from his service -- albeit after the fact -- in the same brigade that carried out the worst U.S. massacre of the war.

The killing of as many as 504 people -- mostly women and children -- at the small central Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai on March 16, 1968, took place 10 weeks before Powell came to Vietnam to begin his second tour of duty.

He says in his autobiography that he did not learn of it until more than a year later, but he has been accused of failing to properly investigate a report prompted by the incident describing routine acts of murder and torture of civilians by U.S. soldiers.

Vietnam, anxious to build on a growing economic relationship with its former enemy, including a historic trade agreement now awaiting ratification, is avoiding references to the bloody past.

"For the past years, since the two countries normalized relations, we have moved forward," Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien told a news conference on Tuesday. "We look forward to welcome Mr Colin Powell in Hanoi."

Relations between the foreign ministers of China and South Korea and Japan's first female Foreign Minister, Makiko Tanaka, are haunted by the ghosts of an even more distant war.

Beijing and Seoul are incensed by a new Japanese school text book they say glosses over Japan's wartime and colonial brutality.

Both countries are also angered by a plan by Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to visit a Shinto shrine in Tokyo honoring war dead, including leaders convicted of war crimes, on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two.

In a bilateral meeting on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told Tanaka Tokyo must "take concrete steps to sincerely and properly settle outstanding problems" over the textbooks and the planned shrine visit, or risk damaging ties. Tang and South Korean counterpart Han Seung-soo also discussed the issues in bilateral talks.

The Tang-Tanaka meeting also touched on a smoldering bilateral trade dispute in which Japan's imposition of steep tariffs on Chinese farm imports were matched with punitive Chinese duties on Japanese high technology products.

Hopes for a resumption of a high-level dialogue on North Korea at the ASEAN meetings were dashed last week when Pyongyang said its foreign minister would not attend because he was "too busy" and would be replaced by an ambassador, Ho Jong.

A senior U.S. official said on Tuesday the Americans may briefly meet their North Korean counterparts, but did not expect to hold talks.

"It's possible that the South Koreans may bring whoever it is over for a handshake...but we're not planning any particular dialogue," the official said, adding that the U.S. delegation was not certain who would represent Pyongyang at the Hanoi gathering.

Late on Tuesday, Powell also held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. There no details on what they discussed.

The narrow ASEAN meeting, which ended on Tuesday, was dominated by events in Indonesia, where the country's supreme legislative body voted on Monday to sack President Abdurrahman Wahid and replace him with his deputy, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

In an official communique, ASEAN welcomed the election of Megawati and said it hoped her presidency would herald improved political stability and faster economic recovery.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told a news conference in Hanoi Megawati faced numerous challenges unifying Indonesia and in addressing economic problems and deserved the support of the international community.