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ASEAN, EU Senior Officials Continue



Subject: ASEAN, EU Senior Officials Continue Debate on Burma

 .c The Associated Press 

SINGAPORE, Feb. 12 (Kyodo) -- Senior officials of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday
continued to debate whether to directly refer to the internal affairs of
Myanmar in a joint declaration to be approved by their foreign ministers
later this week, a senior ASEAN diplomat said. 

The diplomat said both sides were involved in intensive discussions Tuesday
night over the EU's desire to include a reference to Myanmar in an ASEAN-EU
joint declaration to be adopted on Friday. 

The official said a reference to Myanmar ''serves no useful purpose except
for the domestic interests of the Europeans,'' and that human rights groups
like Amnesty International and Myanmar nongovernmental organizations are
lobbying the Europeans to include the issue in the ASEAN-EU meeting. 

ASEAN ''would rather not have a joint declaration if the Europeans insist''
on mentioning Myanmar in the declaration, he said. 

The diplomat explained that refering to the internal affairs of Myanmar in
the declaration will contradict steps taken by ASEAN to bring in Myanmar to
the regional grouping. 

ASEAN included Myanmar as an observer in the last ASEAN ministerial meeting
and wants Myanmar, along with Cambodia and Laos, to become full members soon.


The diplomat said neither would there be an explicit reference to East Timor
in the joint declaration, adding that the EU has agreed that issues
extraneous to ASEAN-EU relations will not be included in the joint
declaration. 

Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Rodolfo Severino told reporters in a
briefing that ASEAN and EU senior officials had a ''very extensive
discussion'' on Myanmar. 

He said the 17-page draft declaration, titled ASEAN-EU Consolidated Joint
Declaration, as of Wednesday included no reference to Myanmar. 

He said the East Timor issue was not mentioned during the discussion. 

The human rights situation in Myanmar and East Timor, a former Portuguese
colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and formally annexed the following year,
were among issues that EU member-countries want to raise in the ASEAN-EU
talks. 

The draft declaration, which Severino described as ''forward-looking,''
contains economic issues aimed at increasing two-way trade between the two
regions such as trade and investment facilitation schemes.