Soeharto arrives for APEC leaders meeting
Soeharto arrives for APEC leaders meeting
OSAKA, Japan (JP): President Soeharto arrived here yesterday to attend the third informal meeting of the leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, scheduled for tomorrow.
Like most of the other 17 APEC leaders, Soeharto arrived two days ahead of the summit, allowing him to hold separate bilateral meetings with his colleagues.
The President arrived aboard a Garuda Indonesia DC-10 at Kansai International airport, together with an entourage including First Lady Mrs. Tien Soeharto and Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono.
Other leaders who arrived ahead of Soeharto yesterday were South Korean President Kim Young-sam, Thai Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa, Koo Chen-fu representing the Taiwan president, Chilean President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Philippine President Fidel Ramos and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, the host of tomorrow's retreat at the Osaka Castle, also arrived yesterday.
Four other leaders who were scheduled to arrive last night were Hong Kong's financial secretary Donald Tsang, President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of Mexico, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and New Zealand Prime Minister James Bolger.
Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien arrived on Thursday.
The other three leaders still to arrive today are Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Julius Chan and U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who is representing President Bill Clinton.
Indonesian officials said Soeharto has lined up seven bilateral meetings for today: Bolger, Keating, Goh, Murayama, Zedillo, Bolkiah and Koo.
On Sunday, the APEC leaders will meet to endorse an Action Agenda to liberalize trade in the region by 2020, as they pledged in Bogor, Indonesia, last year. Each APEC leader is also expected to announce an initial action, or "down payment", to show that they are serious with the free trade plan.
Meanwhile, APEC officials dismissed suggestions yesterday that the absence of Clinton is undermining Sunday's meeting or that it represented a snub to fellow APEC leaders.
The American president canceled his plan to come here at the last minute because of a budget confrontation he was facing with the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.
"It has nothing to do with APEC and everything to do with an internal crisis situation," Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas said. "As the head of state and the president, we can understand if he wants to stay at home and handle the crisis," he said.
"We also don't believe that it will have any effect one way or another on the outcome of the APEC leaders meeting, because I think everything is already firmly in place and we believe that it will be a very successful meeting," Alatas added.
U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor also said Clinton's commitment to APEC and the Asia-Pacific region remains as strong as before.
"Since the first day in office, he has made this the highest priority in both our trade and international and foreign policy commitments, and we will continue to do so." (emb)
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