ASEAN Secretariat, 30 June 2008
North Korea's delivery of a declaration on its compliance with the conditions agreed to by the Six-Party Talks on dismantling its nuclear facilities is welcome development for the entire region, said Secretary-General of ASEAN, Dr. Surin Pitsuwan.
"North Korea (DPRK) has been a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) since 2000. We certainly hope that this positive development will relax tension and anxiety in our region," said the ASEAN chief, referring to the only formal security forum in the Asia Pacific region.
ARF has 27 members from among the ASEAN Member States and their dialogue partners, including China, Russia, US, along with France and UK (via the European Union), who are permanent members in the UN Security Council.
"A possibility of peaceful cooperation between traditional rivals in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia opens up further with this relax in tension," said the former Thai Foreign Minister.
The issue of DPRK's accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) is making progress. The Southeast Asian High Contracting Parties to the TAC, which comprises all ten ASEAN Member States, have already given their consent to the accession of the DPRK to the TAC. The DPRK is expected to be the 15th state outside of Southeast Asia to accede to the TAC.
"I personally brought North Korea into ARF back in 2000. Our hope is that ARF can contribute further to the denuclearisation of Northeast Asia," said Dr. Surin.
The ASEAN Secretary-General also explained that mutual confidence and increasing trust among member states of ARF could widen and deepen security and economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific region.
He insisted that all members of the Six-Party Talks on the Korean Peninsula proliferation issue are full and active members of ARF. It is only logical, he said, that they would work together to strengthen the Forum.
Aside from North Korea and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the US are members of the ad-hoc framework for security discussion in Northeast Asia.
Critics warned that if the Six-Party Talks give rise to further evolution into a permanent security arrangement, it will rival and take the limelight from the ASEAN-led ARF.
"I see the Six-Party Talks arrangement as an outgrowth of the ARF. The entire membership does not have to be involved in the efforts. Some relevant members closer to the issues or any particular sub-region could take the lead. And they always bring the issues back to our annual ARF meeting since 1994 when it was founded," Dr. Surin explained recently in Singapore.
He added: "I look at it as a complementary effort, not as a competition among ARF members. Our hope is that ARF will be more effective in dealing with security issues in our vast region."
