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AFP-Expanded ASEAN looks beyond cri



Subject: AFP-Expanded ASEAN looks beyond crisis in Singapore talks

Expanded ASEAN looks beyond crisis in Singapore talks
SINGAPORE, July 18 (AFP) - Southeast Asia's top diplomatic gathering opens
here this week with economic and security issues high on the agenda after
the region forged political unity and scraped through a financial crisis.
The foreign ministers' meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) will reassess the group's long-term goals after the entry of
Cambodia in April brought all 10 countries in the region under its wing.

It will be followed by the ASEAN Regional Forum on security, involving
foreign ministers from the world's military and industrial powers. It is
expected to tackle raging tension between China and Taiwan, the Kashmir
crisis, fresh concerns in Korea and territorial disputes involving China and
ASEAN members.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The group constitutes a diverse market of half a billion people living under
a spectrum of political systems, from a military junta in Myanmar to
boisterous democracies, which now include its largest member Indonesia.

"ASEAN is now challenged to broaden and deepen its integration in various
forms," the group's secretary-general Rodolfo Severino told AFP.

"The first is the integration of the ASEAN market -- as a free trade area
for goods and services, as a common investment area, and as a region linked
by infrastructure like highway, railway, gas-pipeline and electricity
networks," he said.

Severino said ASEAN should "speak with an increasingly unified voice" in
forums like the International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, and the Asia-Europe Meeting.

At a summit in Vietnam last December, ASEAN's leaders called for "a higher
plane of regional cooperation" and adopted a six-year Hanoi Plan of Action
spelling out steps to boost macroeconomic and financial cooperation and
further open up trade and investment.

They vowed to adopt sound policies in order to avoid "future disturbances."

ASEAN's image had been battered by its helplessness in dealing with the
financial crisis and in attacking real-life problems like severe pollution

from Indonesian forest fires in 1997, which may recur this year.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said it was timely for ASEAN to
now discuss "longer-term issues," saying the group's expansion to encompass
all 10 countries in the region offered "opportunities as well as
challenges."

Some analysts wonder whether the 32-year-old organization will be able to
maintain its internal cohesion and tradition of consensus after growing into
such a large and disparate group, but Severino disagrees.

"A larger ASEAN can, in fact, be more potent and influential than a smaller
one. To achieve this, newer members will have to be more closely integrated
into ASEAN," he said.

The ASEAN gathering will start on Tuesday with a meeting of senior officials
to prepare the agenda of the foreign ministers, who will hold an informal
dinner Thursday before formal talks into the weekend.

The 10 ASEAN ministers will also for the first time participate in a
one-on-one "retreat", designed for personal discussions unencumbered by
officials and entourages, said a Singapore foreign ministry spokesman.

The first meeting of a commission to oversee the implementation of the
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone treaty, which came into force in
1997, will be held on July 24.

On July 26, the group will host the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security
which includes the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the European
Union, followed by a succession of dialogues between ASEAN and its key
partners.

The ARF talks are expected to take up the latest tensions in the Korean
peninsula, the Kashmir crisis between India and Pakistan and the Spratly
islands dispute involving China, Taiwan and four ASEAN members.

The Singapore foreign ministry spokesman said forum members had agreed to do
without their traditional set speeches, paving the way for free-ranging
discussions among the top powers.

The ASEAN meetings will also see US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
meeting her Chinese counterpart Tang Jiaxuan for the first time since the
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by US-led NATO forces during the
Kosovo crisis.

The May 7 bombing killed three Chinese journalists, sparking furious
official protests and anti-US demonstrations across China, which has
rejected Washington's explanation that a series of errors led to an
accidental bombing of the mission.