AFP-Asean To Consider Its Future Th

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Subject: AFP-Asean To Consider Its Future This Week At Singapore Meeting

Asean To Consider Its Future This Week At Singapore Meeting
SINGAPORE, July 19 Asia Pulse - Asean foreign ministers will, for the first
time, go into a retreat during their annual ministerial meeting opening here
next week to reappraise the future of the Southeast Asian grouping.
A Singapore Foreign Ministry spokesman Friday said the foreign ministers
would have the opportunity to discuss "candidly and realistically" the long
term issues and challenges facing the grouping.

The foreign ministers were expected to re-examine "what should to be
preserved and what needs modification", said the spokesman when briefing the
media on the Asean Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on July 23 and 24.

He said Asean was facing internal problems brought on by the Asian financial
crisis that had affected the group's reputation and Asean's expansion had
made decision-making slower.

However, he cautioned against expecting any dramatic policy announcements
from the retreat to be held on the Sentosa resort island after the official
opening of the AMM by Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

"The retreat is the beginning of a process of honest reappraisal and the
search for realistic solutions. But it is only a beginning," said the
spokesman.

For the first time, the AMM would be attended by 10 foreign ministers
following the admission of Cambodia into the grouping last April. The other
Asean members are Brunei, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The spokesman said Asean wanted to send a signal from AMM here that it was
still confident of the future.

"I must, however, emphasise we're not talking or looking for a quantum leap.
This is only the start of a process of renewal. This process cannot be
completed overnight," he said.

The AMM would be followed by security talks at the Asean Regional Forum
(ARF) made up of Asean members and its 12 dialogue partners, and the Post
Ministerial Conference (PMC) during which Asean would meet its dialogue
partners individually.

Asean's dialogue partners are Australia, Canada, China, the European Union,
India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, South Korea
and the United States.


On the Spratly islands dispute, the spokesman said it would be addressed
within the AMM as Asean had in 1996 agreed to a code of conduct in the South
China Sea.

The Spratlys is being claimed wholly or in part by China, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Taiwan.

Asked if there would be discussion on Taiwan's move to declare itself a
separate state from China, the spokesman said, "Nobody has indicated that
they want to talk about it".

However, he said the ARF has no fixed agenda and discussion were impromptu
and free-flowing.

The Asean-led Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (Seanwfz) commission
will also be holding its first meeting here on July 23.