Jakarta gears up for ASEAN guests

Jakarta gears up for ASEAN guests

Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta

Indonesia, the current chair of the Association of the Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), will host a series of regional ministerial
level meetings in Jakarta in the coming three weeks.

The first will be the 37th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), on
June 29 and 30.

The AMM, the first formal 10-member ASEAN foreign ministers'
meeting since the Bali Summit in October 2003, will have on the
agenda a plan of action for the ASEAN Security Community (ASC)
concept and when it concludes the ministers hope to issue a joint
communique. They also hope to issue a declaration on the
elimination of violence against women in the ASEAN region.

Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman Marty A. Natalegawa
said that the ministerial meeting had a mandate to approve the
plan of action for both the ASC and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural
Community, which will be subsequently be endorsed at the next
ASEAN Summit in November 2004 in Vientiane, Laos.

The ASEAN security community idea was initiated by Indonesia
as a means of handling security matters and disputes through a
regional framework rather than bilaterally or through
international forums.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri is scheduled to open the
meeting and will receive courtesy calls from ASEAN and other
foreign ministers. The AMM will have a concluding speech by
Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda on June
30.

On July 1, the ASEAN foreign ministers will also hold ASEAN
plus three (ASEAN+3) meeting with their counterparts from China,
Japan, South Korea.

Simultaneously, there will be a number of Post-Ministerial
Conferences (PMCs) on July 1, Marty said.

During the PMCs, the ASEAN foreign ministers will meet their
counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Russia, the
European Union and the U.S.

After those two ministerial meetings, Jakarta will host the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting, on July 2, 2004.

It is expected that the 23 ARF delegations will endorse the
entry of Pakistan, the only predominantly Muslim country with
nuclear weapons, as its 24th member.

Another topic that may come up during the deliberations
between the 10 ASEAN delegations and those of the 13 other
countries at the 11th ARF meeting will be terrorism, security in
the Strait of Malacca and the North Korean nuclear issue.

North Korea's foreign minister confirmed that he would attend
the meeting, while U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell may skip
the meeting due to his preoccupation with his country's plan to
hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30.

"Yes, Minister Paek Nam-sun (of North Korea) will be here on
June 28 and hold bilateral talks with Hassan Wirayuda," Marty
told reporters on Friday.

Marty, however, declined to say whether Indonesia had made any
plans to facilitate a meeting between North Korea and South Korea
to discuss the nuclear issue.

"We are not in the position to facilitate the meeting, but if
there is a demand from those countries, we are ready to
facilitate it," he said.