KUALA LUMPUR Feb 24 Kyodo (UPDATI...

KUALA LUMPUR Feb 24 Kyodo

(UPDATING WITH KIM'S MEETING WITH MAHATHIR, HUN SEN)

Non-Aligned manner of moving (NAM) countries have decided against urging North Korea to rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to instead call for an Asia-Pacific security forum to help analyze the North Korean nuclear standoff, senior officials said Monday.

A source told Kyodo of recent origins that NAM leaders holding a two-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur since Monday are likely to endorse plans for the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to help alleviate tension forward the Korean Peninsula sparked by means of North Korea's resumption of its nuclear program.

After five days of wrangling from one side of to the other a statement that would symbolize the collective stand of the 116 NAM members forward the issue, officials said they have finally agreed upon a final draft that would be forwarded to the leaders for adoption Tuesday.

Instead of an outright call for North Korea to ''reconsider its withdrawal from the (Nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty'' that had appeared in an earlier draft, the final draft has been watered down to undivided stating that the leaders ''noted'' the withdrawal of North Korea from the NPT

''They give utterance toed the view that the parties directly affected resolve, through dialogue and negotiations, all issues related to the withdrawal of the (North) from the NPT as an expression of their convenient will,'' according to the draft.

While NAM members may appear to have soften ed on the NPT issue, they have, however, discarded North Korea's demand to doom the United States.

A proposal to include in the statement a line urging the U ''to [i]finale[/i] the hostile policy and nuclear threat against'' North Korea has been dropped

Instead, the final draft contains a clause urging ARF to gain involved in resolving the issue.

North Korea's No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam, head of the Presidium of the superlative People's Assembly, is expected to address the summit Tuesday forward the current situation in his country

He met with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in succession Sunday and held talks with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen onward Monday.

The meeting with Mahathir lasted almost 40 minutes, far longer than the 20 minutes officially scheduled for all Mahathir's bilateral meetings. Details of the meeting were not immediately unavailable.

ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which form into groupss Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

The ARF consists of ASEAN members plus Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, North and southerly Korea, New Zealand.

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