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U.S., ASEAN sign pact to combat terror
By P. S. Suryanarayana
Hailed as a trend-setter in the ongoing U.S.-led global campaign against terrorism, the document was signed by the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and the Foreign Minister of Brunei, Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, on behalf of the ASEAN.
Allaying fears that the new accord might encourage the U.S. to spread its military wings across South-East Asia, Mr. Powell said his country was "not looking for new bases or places at this time".
At a press conference, Mr. Powell sought to dispel the impression that the declaration may serve as a smokescreen for enlarging America's military footprints across South-East Asia.
He noted though that the presence of U.S. troops in the larger East Asian theatre, now estimated at about one-lakh personnel, and the related American military posture had already marked "a stabilising influence" for many decades. This factor would remain a stabilising force for decades to come in the present context, he said. Despite this perception of a strategic dividend for America and also the larger East Asian entity, Mr. Powell underscored the absence of any provision in the latest accord for direct military co-operation between the U.S. and any or all of the South-East Asian States.
The centrepiece of the new declaration is the network of "intimate contacts" which the U.S., on one side, and any or all of the South-East Asian nations, on the other, hope to develop for intelligence-sharing and anti-terror capacity building. Asked why the U.S. felt the need to sign a separate anti-terror declaration in conjunction with the ASEAN, Mr. Powell said the regional association had taken the initiative in this regard. Both sides agreed that the accord would signal "a positive political commitment in the fight against terror."
To a question whether the U.S. would be inclined to consider similar agreements with other regional organisations, Mr. Powell said Washington would be willing to do so on a multilateral basis.
The U.S. will be no less interested in purely bilateral agreements of this kind too. Mr. Powell, however, emphasised that the U.S.-ASEAN consensus was accomplished as a result of an "invitation from this regional outfit."
Referring to the recent resolutions that the United Nations Security Council adopted to put the anti-terror issue on the global agenda, Mr. Powell said there was still room for commitments at various levels of inter-state co-operation.
About Western arguments that the new anti-terror war may only encourage some governments in South-East Asia to suppress human rights, Mr. Powell said: "We have to attack them (the terrorists) from the highest moral plane. Human rights must be protected and observed."
On another major subject of concern at the ASEAN-organised annual meetings, which concluded here today, Mr. Powell took the line that his now famous coffee diplomacy, which brought him to a brief but direct meeting with the North Korean Foreign Minister, was not at all inconsistent with the U.S. President, George W. Bush's identification of Pyongyang as a co-ordinate in the "axis of evil." According to Mr. Powell, the idea was to encourage North Korea to sustain its willingness to engage both South Korea and Japan with a view to defusing tensions.
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