Asean Secretary General Hails Easing Of Tension Over N. Korea

ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong (2nd L front) visits the third China-ASEAN Exposition in Nanning, Oct. 31. [Xinhua Photo]


Asean Secretary General Hails Easing Of Tension Over N. Korea

MANILA, July 28 (Bernama) -- Southeast Asian foreign ministers are expecting next week's annual regional security forum in Manila to be more relaxed than usual, in view of the positive atmosphere generated by North Korea's recent shutdown of its nuclear facilities, Asean Secretary General Ong Keng Yong said Friday.
"Asean is just happy that the tension has lessened and we hope that this encounter here at the Asean Regional Forum will allow the six-party talk members to feel easy with each other and feel more comfortable and consolidate their progress," Kyodo News quoted Ong as speaking to reporters.
The 26-member ARF is the lone multilateral security forum in the Asia-Pacific region that involves North Korea, though that country has been engaged in separate denuclearization talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
North Korea's nuclear program has been a thorny issue for ARF.
The last ARF meeting, held in July 2006 in Kuala Lumpur, was especially tense as it took place in the wake of North Korea's test-firing of seven missiles, including a long-range one, and at a time when Pyongyang was refusing to return to the six-party talks until Washington lifted sanctions it had imposed on a Macao-based bank where North Korean accounts had been frozen.
North Korea's then Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, angered at plans to have his country's nuclear and missile programs subjected to scrutiny, boycotted a 10-nation session on Northeast Asian security that was held on the sidelines of that ARF meeting.
But last month, the nuclear issue moved a step toward resolution, with North Korea closing down and sealing its nuclear facilities and inviting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency back into the country under a Feb. 13 six-party deal.
Ong expressed hope that representatives of the six nations involved in the North Korean denuclearization process can talk on the sidelines of the ARF meeting even in the absence of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who will skip this year's forum.
Now that tangible progress has been achieved on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, he said, the ARF is now ready to take up the issue of humanitarian concerns in North Korea.
Still, he said, ARF members are not sure what the North Korean government would want others to do.
The ARF, founded in 1994, groups Asean's 10 members -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- plus Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, the United States, Russia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Pakistan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Japan, China and India.
Sri Lanka will become the 27th member on Wednesday.

-- BERNAMA


July 28, 2007 11:03 AM
N. Korea Eyes Power Plant Refurbishment As Reward For Denuke Steps

BEIJING, July 28 (Bernama) -- North Korea has floated power plant refurbishment and enhancement of its oil storage capacity as potential rewards for denuclearization steps it is to take in a key six-party deal reached in February, diplomatic sources said.
North Korea's nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan proposed the idea in talks among chief delegates of the six countries involved in negotiations for denuclearizing North Korea held in Beijing earlier this month, the diplomatic sources said.
Under a Feb 13 deal, North Korea is to declare all its nuclear programs and dismantle all existing nuclear facilities as the second stage of its denuclearization, in exchange for aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.
But because North Korea only has an absorption capacity of 50,000 tons a month, a working group under the six-party framework is expected to meet next month to study ways to provide the assistance in different ways.
Quoting Kim, Kyodo News reported that North Korea is ready to move ahead with its obligations in the second phase of denuclearization, but that Pyongyang feels it cannot go ahead with them unless questions of how and when it will receive assistance from the other countries are answered.
As examples of aid other than heavy fuel oil shipments, Kim raised the possibility of refurbishing the country's existing thermal power station as well as construction of oil storage facilities, according to the sources.
While top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing this month that refurbishment, additional storage capacity and electricity provision are among the options of heavy fuel oil equivalents considered for North Korea, this is the first time that Pyongyang's preference on the matter has become known.

-- BERNAMA