U.S. will attend ASEAN meeting

U.S. will attend ASEAN meeting

USA: Either U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or her deputy, Robert Zoellick, will attend next month's ASEAN meeting in Laos, but the State Department is not saying which one.

Foreign ministry officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met briefly with Rice on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

McCormack said "she assured them that there would be high- level State Department representation at that meeting."

He declined to elaborate, saying "this gets into the issue of travel schedules."

Asked if either Rice or Zoellick would be at the meeting, McCormack said "I think it's safe to say that when I talk about high-level representation, it would include one of the two."

If Rice chooses not to attend the meeting, it would likely raise eyebrows in the region because U.S. secretaries of state have regularly attended these annual gatherings.

ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. -- AP