Human rights not high on ASEM agenda

Human rights not high on ASEM agenda

BERLIN (Reuters): Sensitive topics like human rights are likely to be soft-pedaled when foreign ministers from 25 European Union and Asian nations gather in Berlin on Monday to discuss a variety of global political and economic issues.

Diplomats from the 15 EU states and 10 Asian nations attending the second Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of foreign ministers since its 1996 launch are not planning anything more than talk -- especially on the explosive issue of human rights.

Even though German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who is hosting the biannual meeting, has twice criticized China's human rights record recently, the ASEM foreign ministers are not expected to produce anything more binding than a communique.

Fischer said after a meeting in Bonn on Friday with China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan that China had made important steps towards opening itself to the world in the last decade, but that its record on human rights was deteriorating.

Fischer accused China of imprisoning political dissidents for expressing their views, condemned the extent it uses the death penalty and said Germany was deeply concerned about its policies on Tibet.

But Tang, standing next to Fischer, rejected the criticism and urged Fischer to inspect China for himself.

"Seeing it once is better than hearing about it one hundred times," he said.

In Berlin, Fischer, Tang and their counterparts will also discuss the crisis in former Yugoslavia and its consequences for Europe, Russia's economic and political development, the situation on the Korean peninsula, Cambodia and human rights.

Among financial issues to be discussed are the financial crisis in the Far East, the euro and issues involving the World Trade Organization.

That the ASEM meeting is taking place at all is viewed as a tribute to diplomacy. Plans to hold a separate meeting in Berlin on Tuesday between foreign ministers from the EU and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) nations were scrapped.

This was canceled because the EU would not relax its ban on officials from ASEAN member Myanmar traveling to Germany. The EU has long criticized Myanmar's human rights record.

Officials said that even though the EU-ASEAN meeting was canceled because of the row, it was important to keep the dialogue open between the two regions through other channels such as ASEM, of which Myanmar is not a member.

Along with the 15 EU nations, ASEM is made up of China, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Designed as an informal gathering between EU and Asian states, ASEM was launched with a summit of state and government leaders in Bangkok in 1996. A second summit was held last year in London and the third will take place in 2000 in Seoul. Foreign ministers met in 1997 in Singapore.