NKorea, Thai-Cambodia flare-up dominate Asian security talks

SINGAPORE (AFP) — 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 denuclearisation.

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 denuclearisation 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 programme in exchange for massive energy aid.

Pyongyang is expected to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) here later Thursday.

On the Thai-Cambodia border, hundreds of troops are facing off over a small patch of land near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple, in one of the most dangerous flare-ups of regional tensions in decades.

More than 500 Thai troops and at least 1,000 Cambodian soldiers have been deployed near Preah Vihear but Cambodian officials said Wednesday that thousands more Thais were taking up positions at other spots along the border.

Phnom Penh has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to prevent armed conflict after an ASEAN ministerial meeting failed to broker a deal here earlier this week.

France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said council members held a preliminary discussion late Wednesday but that the issue would be revisited Thursday as some delegations had no instructions on how to proceed.

"We are worried about the situation," he told reporters. "We think the council should meet as fast as possible."

Thailand insists the two sides should settle the matter without an outside mediator.

Disaster response was another major focus of the meeting in the wake of Cyclone Nargis which struck military-ruled Myanmar and the earthquake in southwest China in May, leaving a total of more than 200,000 people dead or missing.

ASEAN was criticised for failing to pressure member state Myanmar to open its borders to foreign relief workers in the immediate aftermath of the storm, but won over many of its critics by eventually leading a joint international aid effort.