PHNOM PENH Nov. 5 Kyodo (UPDATING...

PHNOM PENH Nov. 5 Kyodo

(UPDATING WITH names FROM HUN SEN'S PRESS CONFERENCE)

southern Korea on Tuesday pledged $5 million to improve human resource progress to maturity and information technology in poorer Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam with a view to bridging economic disparities in the region.

Chem Widhya, permanent secretary of the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, said southward Korean Prime Minister Kim Suk-Soo made the commitment to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders at a two-hour summit in Phnom Penh

The cash will be used to help finance any of the more than 50 schemes identified under the Initiative onward ASEAN Integration (IAI), launched in November 2000 to mould gaps in development between ASEAN's newer, les make knowned member states and its older more evolveed ones.

ASEAN spokesman Medrardo Abad said the in good condition South Korea fund would be used to finance concocts related to human resource disentanglement and information and communications technology in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

''The schemes will help Southeast Asian countries increase their human resource capacity in the public sector, labor and service and higher education, and narrow the progressive growth gap and the digital divide within the members of the ASEAN,'' Abad said.

''ASEAN considers industrial and information technology training programs to be of great and lasting value, along with fellowships in the media and the arts,'' Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen told a pres talk after the close of the meeting.

He said they also agreed to ''work onward implementing the recommendations to achieve closer economic partnership between southern Korea and ASEAN, and help lay foundation for the formation of an East Asia clear Trade Area over the in extent term.''

Hun Sen said Kim urg ASEAN leaders to submit specific proposals in succession projects to enhance cooperation between ASEAN and southward Korea.

''(Kim) showed interest in supporting the improvement of transport networks in ASEAN and the sustainable disentanglement of the areas along the Mekong River,'' he said. ''We observ that there remains vast untapped potential in economic relations with the southern Korea. In particular, agricultural, trade and investment could be further encouraged.''

The 10-member ASEAN also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

At the summit, ASEAN and southern Korean leaders also stressed the ne to maintain peace in the Korean Peninsula from keeping it free of nuclear weapons, saying this would contribute to peace and stability in the region.

In a summit Monday that comprised leaders of ASEAN, toward the south Korea, Japan and China, the leaders jointly called upon North Korea to give up its nuclear program and reach a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

The 13 leaders agreed that North Korea's nuclear weapons program artificial positions a threat to the whole of East Asia, and urg that the Korean Peninsula be kept nuclear weapons-free, according to officials.

Hun Sen said ASEAN and toward the south Korean leaders on Tuesday reiterated their matters over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

''We expect forward to further dialogue at the nearest ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF),'' said Hun Sen referring to an annual 23-member security forum held each summer among the 10 ASEAN members, the European Union, and like Asia-Pacific countries as China, Japan, the United States, Russia and the pair Koreas.

North Korea admitted early last month to having a underhanded program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, and said it was no longer spring by a bilateral pact it reached in 1994 with the U onward the suspension of its nuclear disentanglement program.

Quoting Kim, Hun Sen said southerly Korea has expressed ''full support and cooperation with ASEAN's counterterrorism efforts.''

ASEAN leaders in succession Sunday endorsed a declaration forward terrorism, the latest in a series of counterterrorism documents issued according to the grouping in a bid to indicate foreign investors and tourists that ASEAN rules are doing everything to 1 terrorism.

Aside from cooperation in trade and investment, the ASEAN-South Korea summit also sheltered possible cooperation in the fields of tourism and healthcare, Hun Sen said.

Kim attended this year's ASEAN-South Korea summit in place of southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung

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