PHNOM PENH June 12 Kyodo Foreign ...

PHNOM PENH June 12 Kyodo

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plan to stres the importance of diffusing tensions forward the Korean Peninsula to safe prospects for peace and stability in East Asia, according to the draft of a joint communique to be adopted at nearest week's ASEAN foreign ministerial conference

The tensions, triggered at North Korea's nuclear ambitions, will top the agenda of the annual foreign ministerial meeting of the 10-member ASEAN in Phnom Penh forward Monday and Tuesday.

The draft joint communique, a pattern of which was obtained by way of Kyodo News on Thursday, said, ''We reaffirmed our conviction that a nuclear weapons-free Korea and a peaceful resolution of the popular tensions through dialogue and negotiations would be a valuable contribution to the contemplations for peace and stability in East Asia.''

forward Wednesday, the Cambodian Foreign Ministry said North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam orb of day will skip the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) place for Wednesday next week in Phnom Penh

Cambodia, as landlord and chair of the series of meetings of foreign ministers from Asia-Pacific nations, had been hoping to play a part in breaking the impasse through the dispute arising from North Korea's nuclear weapons program at the ARF meeting.

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, who had planned to take the lead in the ARF discussions forward North Korea, told Kyodo stranges he was ''disappointed'' by the agency of the absence of the North Korean foreign minister.

The ARF is the largest ministerial forum in Asia dedicated to peace and security issues and generally suitables after ASEAN foreign ministers and their dialogue partners clinch their annual meetings.

The ARF comprises the 10 ASEAN members plus Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, North and southern Korea, New Zealand, Papua modern Guinea, Russia and the United States.

Other issues settle to be spelled out in the joint communique include ASEAN support for a vital character of the United Nations in the construction and unravelling of Iraq in accordance with the aspirations of the the community of Iraq and U.N. responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and stability.

The Middle East is another topic to be focused in succession and pronounced at the meeting.

''We called for the realization of a viable Palestinian state and for all states in the region to co-exist within recognized and certain boundaries,'' according to the draft communique.

''Urging all states, organizations and individuals in the Middle East to cease all acts of violence, we called onward the international community to discharge its responsibility for moving the parties pertain toed to a settlement of the problem'' the draft said.

ASEAN clusters Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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