PHNOM
PENH: Southeast Asian leaders met Tuesday for an annual summit set to be
dominated by Myanmar's historic reforms, North Korea's planned rocket launch
and strategic maritime disputes with China.
Leaders
of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asians (ASEAN) gathered in the
Cambodian capital two days after by-elections in Myanmar saw pro-democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi win her first seat in parliament.
Election
monitors from Cambodia, which holds the ASEAN chair, have declared Sunday's
vote free and fair, and urged the West to lift sanctions imposed over the
Myanmar military's long record of rights abuses.
ASEAN
foreign ministers applauded the "orderly" conduct of the polls during
talks in Phnom Penh on Monday, setting the stage for a strong endorsement from
the bloc's leaders at Wednesday's conclusion of the two-day summit.
ASEAN
secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said the vote should contribute to the
"reintegration of Myanmar into the global community", a reference to
the possible lifting of sanctions.
Myanmar's
human rights abuses and iron-fisted suppression of political dissent have often
hijacked ASEAN gatherings in the past, much to the embarrassment of more
democratic member-states.
But
over the past 12 months the country's quasi-civilian government, led by
President Thein Sein, has freed hundreds of political prisoners, eased media
restrictions and welcomed the opposition back to the political fold.
At the
last ASEAN summit in November, the country was rewarded for its efforts by
being promised the bloc's chairmanship in 2014. Myanmar is eager too to win
greater foreign investment with the prospect of sanctions being lifted.
ASEAN
comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- a grouping of nearly 600
million people from disparate economic and political systems.
The
bloc has often been dismissed as a talking shop but it has assumed new
strategic importance in light of Washington's foreign policy "pivot"
to Asia and the economic rise of China in recent years.
North
Korea's planned rocket launch -- described by Pyongyang as a bid to send a
satellite into orbit but condemned by the United States and its allies as a
thinly disguised missile test -- is also looming over the Cambodia summit.
Philippine
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the ASEAN foreign ministers spoke
with one voice against the nuclear-armed North's launch plans.
The
Philippines -- which lies beneath the rocket's proposed flight path -- has
lodged formal protests with Pyongyang's representatives at the United Nations,
in China and at ASEAN.
"I
think the countries that spoke on the topic... were all of the opinion that we
should be discouraging (North Korea) from undertaking that launch," Del
Rosario said after the foreign ministers' meeting on Monday.
Regional
tensions with China over disputed islands in the South China Sea are another
vexing issue for the ASEAN leaders, diplomats said.
China
has competing territorial claims in the sea with ASEAN members Brunei,
Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The United States says it has a
"national interest" in keeping the vital trade route open to
shipping.
The sea
is a conduit for more than one-third of the world's maritime trade and half its
traffic in oil and gas, and major petroleum deposits are believed to lie below
the seabed.
US ally
the Philippines has been leading a push for ASEAN to form a united front and
present China with a binding "code of conduct" in the sea, but other
members argue that Beijing should be involved from the start.
There
are also differences over the "internationalisation" of the rival
claims, with Cambodia insisting they are matters for quiet diplomacy between ASEAN
and China but the Philippines asserting the primacy of international law.
-
AFP/cc
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