AFP-Albright heads to ASEAN meeting

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Subject: AFP-Albright heads to ASEAN meetings with agenda full of world

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Albright heads to ASEAN meetings with agenda full of world hotspots
WASHINGTON, July 22 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright heads
for Asia Thursday with a full agenda, but much of her time will be spent on
issues not directly related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
meeting she is to attend.
While the regional recovery from the debilitating economic crisis, growing
tension over the Spratly Islands, Indonesia's recent elections and the
upcoming independence vote in East Timor are sure to occupy her, larger
issues may predominate.

With bombastic rhetoric between China and Taiwan growing by the day and
increasing fears the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir may not subside,
Albright has pointedly scheduled bilateral meetings with both the Chinese
and Indian foreign ministers.

China and India are both members of the ASEAN Regional Forum, the security
grouping, which will be meeting on Monday in Singapore, one day ahead of the
annual ASEAN post-ministerial conference.

Neither Taiwan nor Pakistan attend the meetings but officials here say
Albright's expected conversations Sunday with the foreign ministers of
China, Tang Jiaxuan, and India, Jaswant Singh, will be crucial.

Washington has already expressed its concern to Beijing over the raging
tension in the Taiwan Strait with a phone call from President Bill Clinton
to Chinese President Jiang Zemin urging restraint and Albright sending
special envoys to both Beijing and Taipei.

The State Department, which in the past week has issued warnings to China
about the use of force to re-unify Taipei with Beijing, has made particular
note of the Chinese refusal to renounce force as a means of bringing the two
together.

"The Chinese have made some statements which are basically the ones that
they have made previously, that they would like to see a peaceful solution
to this, but they have not renounced the use of force," Albright said this
week.

"We have set out what we think is a good path to handle this, and statements
are not helpful in this regard," she said referring to both comments from
Beijing and Taipei.

"The important point here is that the only way to resolve this is
peacefully. And that is a point that I'm going to be making to Foreign

Minister Tang."

With Singh, Albright is to push for resumption of direct talks between Delhi
and Islamabad over Kashmir where Indian troops have been fighting back
Pakistani-supported forces who crossed the disputed province's so-called
Line of Control.

Although Pakistan has agreed to withdraw those troops from the Indian side
of the line, Washington is eager to see the two sides resume negotiations
through the now-stalled Lahore process.

"We hope very much that India and Pakistan will resume their dialogue under
the Lahore process and that is frankly what I'm going to be talking to
Jaswant Singh about," Albright said.

"We do want to see an early return to the Lahore process in which both
countries would discuss all the issues dividing them, including Kashmir," he
said, noting the talks would be the first high-level bilateral meeting
between Washington and Delhi since the Kashmir crisis began.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif traveled to Washington on July 4 and
met Clinton after which Islamabad agreed to pull back.

In addition to Kashmir, Albright will also discuss with Singh nuclear
non-proliferation -- a subject of great worldwide concern given the fact
that both India and Pakistan have atomic weapons.

Another non-ASEAN related bilateral meeting Albright will hold is with
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, whose country played a key role in
ending the crisis in Kosovo.

Now that the crisis has simmered and an international peacekeeping force --
that includes the Russians who were vehemently opposed to NATO's bombing
campaign -- is in place, US officials want to ensure that Washington and
Moscow remain on the same page.

"We want to compare notes and see how to improve coordination," one State
Department official said of the meeting, expected on Monday.

Albright and Ivanov are also to touch on enforcement of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty (ABM), after the US Congress took steps to develop a US
anti-missile shield that Russia says would breach the 1972 agreement.

Despite the importance of the global concerns, US officials maintain it is
misleading to say Albright is giving short shrift to Southeast Asian issues.

One senior State Department official noted that Albright would likely
address human rights concerns about Myanmar, ongoing trade negotiations with
Vietnam and Cambodian democracy.

"I would not characterize this as a meeting that happens to be in an ASEAN
country that focuses on non-ASEAN problems," the official said.