Myanmar suggests it will forego ASEAN chairmanship

Myanmar suggests it will forego ASEAN chairmanship

Jasbant Singh, Associated Press/Vientiane

Military-ruled Myanmar hinted on Sunday it would forgo a regional
chairmanship to spare neighbors from rebukes by the West over the
junta's poor democracy record, as Asia-Pacific nations opened
their top annual security conference.

Australia also was set to embrace a regional nonaggression
pact, reversing longstanding opposition after Asian neighbors
made the accord a condition for attending a summit next December
aimed at moving toward a big East Asian trade bloc.

Canberra will sign a declaration of intent to join the pact
during the six-day conference in Laos and have its parliament
ratify the pact before signing it by December, Laotian Deputy
Foreign Minister Bounkeut Sangsomsak said on Sunday.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus more
than a dozen other governments with interests in the region --
such as the U.S., Russia, European Union and China -- opened
talks leading up to the ASEAN Regional Forum on Thursday and
Friday.

Forum officials worked on an agreement about sharing
intelligence to better combat international terrorism, officials
said.

"The recent bombings in London and Egypt are a reminder that
this sort of thing can take place at any time and any place,"
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.

Impoverished Laos, holding only its second such conference,
deployed soldiers in armored cars at intersections in tropical
Vientiane and along the main road to the nearby Mekong River
separating the country from Thailand.

The main venue's corrugated metal roof was pelted with rain on
Sunday, filling the cavernous interior with an earsplitting
sizzle. Conference spokesman Yong Chanthalangsy said VIP meeting
rooms were protected by a new layer of grass thatch -- though the
main hall was left unthatched.

"Even if there is a downpour now, it will not disturb the
meeting because we have grass covering the roof. The rain will
hit the grass, not the roof," Yong said.

Myanmar's colleagues in ASEAN have urged it to meet U.S. and
European Union demands to liberalize and release pro-democracy
campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi or forgo its scheduled chairmanship
of the bloc in late 2006.

The U.S. and EU have threatened to boycott ASEAN meetings if
Myanmar becomes the bloc's leader, and Southeast Asian nations
fear it could endanger trade ties with the West.

Myanmar's delegation was widely expected to announce this week
it would step aside.

Myanmar Foreign Ministry official Thuang Tun strongly
suggested that in comments to reporters on Sunday, though he
declined to confirm it.

"We do not want to have our friends in a very difficult
position," he said. "If we just insist for the sake of insisting
then we have a situation where ASEAN would be in a difficult
position and we do not want to put ASEAN in a difficult
position."

The U.S. secretary of state is skipping the ASEAN ministerial
meeting -- sending a deputy instead -- for the first time since
1982. The meeting was expanded to include the security-oriented
ASEAN Regional Forum in 1994.

The no-show provoked speculation that it was a U.S. warning
not to give Myanmar the chairmanship, or that Washington's
priority was the Mideast over Asia.

New Zealand and Mongolia were expected to join ASEAN's
nonaggression pact, which the bloc also has signed with nations
such as China, Russia, Japan, India and Pakistan.

Australia long refused to join, saying it could interfere with
its 54-year-old defense treaty with Washington. But ASEAN made it
a prerequisite for attending December's inaugural East Asia
Summit in Malaysia.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Sunday
that Canberra is eager to attend the summit, and hopes to resolve
concerns over the friendship pact in Laos.

Negotiations among six nations aimed at getting North Korea to
scrap its nuclear weapons program resume separately on Tuesday in
Beijing. However, foreign ministers for those nations will be in
Laos, where they also could discuss the standoff.