ASEAN Summit Kicks Off

Thailand kicked off the opening ceremony for the week-long ASEAN summit in Phuket. Terrorism, trade and human rights are expected to be high on the agenda.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers began talks in Thailand today, with counter-terrorism expected to be high on the agenda after last week's suicide bombings in the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta.

The ministers from the ASEAN countries were also due to formally agree on terms for the creation of a commission on human rights.

The commission was supposed to take into account the "special circumstances" of the 10 member countries, including military-ruled Burma.

ASEAN has tried in the past decade to get the junta to free political prisoners including opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who is on trial on charges of breaching the conditions of her house arrest.

[Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thai Prime Minister]:
"I cannot speculate on the outcome of the trial and clearly the Myanmar government insists that the matter is now within the hands of the courts and we'll have to wait for the outcome of the trial and look at the legal possibilities because we obviously cannot interfere with their internal process. But we will see what options there would be and we have to wait for the outcome of the trial first."

ASEAN admits the trial has hurt its image, and fears its stubborn member will damage their relations with the West, but the group is far from expelling the generals.

Burma's relationship with North Korea will be discussed at the meeting as ASEAN members have expressed their concern on security issues.

[Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thai Prime Minister]:
"It will be a first opportunity, I think since the mounting of tensions, where all the concerned parties will be around the table and we hope that we can play our part in facilitating or paving the way for more talks."

The regional talks are also expected to focus on the issue of North Korea's missile testing, security in the South China Sea, and China's detention of mining giant Rio Tinto's employees for alleged spying.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• NTD
• ASEAN summit
• Phuket
• Thailand
• Terrorism
• Indonesia
• Jakarta
• Human rights
• Aung San Suu Kyi
• House arrest

[southchinaseadispute]

h*t*t*p://south-china-sea.blog­spot.c*o*m/

[yorubablk3]

This is funny..they are not worried about 'their' security,but the security of US global interest in the region.We are not blind.