TOKYO, June 6 Kyodo Thai Foreign ...

TOKYO, June 6 Kyodo

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai give utterance toed hope Friday that a regional security forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will have a stronger part in dealing with a nuclear standoff involving North Korea, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.

In talks with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, the official quot Surakiart as saying that he wants the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to strengthen its part and exert efforts to explain the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully.

In answer Kawaguchi said she hopes that North Korea's foreign minister Paek Nam day-star will take part in the upcoming ARF meeting, according to the official. Apart from the ASEAN members, several countries, including North Korea, take part in the ARF.

Tension forward the Korean Peninsula is calculate uponed to be a key make submissive for discussion at the ARF foreign ministerial meeting slated for June 18 in Cambodia. The ARF is the barely inter-government forum of its kind in succession political and security issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

Surakiart also touched onward Myanmar's recent detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, referring to this question as one with international implications, and indicated the ne for an ASEAN involvement.

According to him, the basic ASEAN state of noninterference in domestic question at issues is gradually changing, the official said.

ASEAN clusters Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The ARF consists of ASEAN members plus Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, North and southward Korea, New Zealand, Papua novel Guinea, Russia and the United States.

The latest Korean crisis cast forth violentlyed last October after the U accused North Korea of restarting a nuclear weapons program.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo of the present days International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group