Jaswant to hold separate talks

By Amit Baruah

BANGKOK, JULY 25. The External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, arrives here tomorrow for the seventh ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting, which takes off with a working dinner on Wednesday evening while the formal session takes place on Thursday.

India, it is near-certain, will not face any embarrassing moments of the kind it encountered at the ARF meeting in Manila in 1998 when the nuclear tests were the focus of attention.

In fact, the ARF Chairman's statement, the only public document of the Forum meeting, is not expected to contain any direct references to the Indian or Pakistani nuclear tests of the kind made in 1999 in Singapore, though a general suggestion for universal adherence to the CTBT and NPT will remain.

In 1999, the ARF Chairman had ``noted support for encouraging States that had tested nuclear weapons (neither India nor Pakistan were named) last year to exercise restraint, including by adhering to the CTBT, and to revive the Lahore process.'' This time round such references have been restricted in draft form to a general call for adherence to the CTBT and NPT. The final form of the Chairman's statement will, of course, remain to be seen.

Mr. Jaswant Singh, during his stay, which will include a separate ASEAN-India dialogue on July 29, is expected to have bilateral meetings with the Foreign Ministers of New Zealand, Australia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and, possibly, Indonesia.

The attendance of the U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, who is busy with the West Asia peace process, at the ARF session remains in doubt. Mr. Singh could meet the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Strobe Talbott, who is to stand in for Ms. Albright, on the sidelines of the ARF meeting.

In case Ms. Albright fails to turn up, some of the gloss from the ARF meeting revolving around the first-time participation of North Korea in the Forum will go missing. There have even been suggestions that Ms. Albright could meet with the Foreign Ministers of both the Koreas together. However, with her attendance in doubt, such initiatives may not come about.

There is little doubt that the `sidelines' of the ARF and ASEAN post-Ministerial conferences will become less exciting in case the promised high-level interactions on the Korean issue does not take place.

That ASEAN members are excited about Pyongyang's participation is clear from their joint communique issued today.

``They (the 10 ASEAN Foreign Ministers) noted with satisfaction the efforts by DPRK (North Korea) to improve relations with its neighbours, as well as ASEAN member countries, and to enhance its interactions with the wider international community.

In this regard, they looked forward to the participation of the DPRK at the Seventh ARF in Bangkok on July 26-27 2000,'' the Ministers stated.

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Section  : International
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