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SINGAPORE: Foreign ministers from
Asia and key world powers opened security talks here Thursday amid a
simmering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia and progress
on North Korean denuclearization.
The meeting of
the 27-nation Asean Security Forum—featuring Southeast Asian
countries as well as the United States, Russia and the European
Union—came after an unprecedented meeting here Wednesday between
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her North Korean
counterpart.
Asia’s top
security forum was held against the backdrop of the devastating
Myanmar cyclone and Chinese earthquake in May, as well as a bitter
territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.
At a meeting here
Wednesday of top diplomats trying to disarm North Korea, Rice
pressed North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun to take new steps
on denuclearization but hailed the “good spirit” at the
six-nation talks.
Rice shook hands
twice with her “axis of evil” counterpart Pak at their first
meeting, saying the negotiating partners “believe we’ve made
progress” but urging Pyongyang to agree to a verification protocol
on disarmament.
Foreign ministers
from their six-party counterparts China, South Korea, Russia and
Japan were also present at the informal meeting, the highest-level
gathering of the group since the nuclear dialogue began in 2003.
“I don’t
think the North Koreans left with any illusions about the fact that
the ball is in their court, and that everybody believes that they
have got to respond and respond positively on verification,” Rice
said Thursday.
North Korea
staged its first nuclear test in 2006 but in February the following
year the hermit state agreed to drop its weapons program in exchange
for massive energy aid.
---AFP
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