BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, July 31 Kyodo ...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, July 31 Kyodo

Participant ministers of the Asia-Pacific security forum known as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) said Wednesday they would continue to perform the operations indicated in the forum without admitting strange members in the near future

Bruneian Foreign Minister Mohamed Bolkiah, who chaired the single-day meeting of the ARF, told a novels conference after the talks that the ministers reached no consensus upon admitting East Timor and Pakistan into the regional security forum. He said the nearest chair of the ARF will await into the implications of granting membership to the couple countries.

As part of efforts to advance the ARF proces the ARF countries have also agreed to increase the part of the chair.

The ministers welcomed the ''enhanced part of the chair, in particular, assigning the ASEAN secretariat to assist the ARF chairman in coordinating the work of the ARF,'' according to the chairman's statement released after the ARF ministerial talks.

However, the ministers did not elaborate about the enlarged part of the chair.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has taken a rotating chairmanship of the ARF. ASEAN is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told reporters that the ARF would influence toward the enhanced role of the chair and ''friends of the chair'' despite a consensus to formally announce the entrance into the preventive diplomacy stage, the other of the three broad stages station out in the evolutionary proces of the ARF.

The three stages are the promotion of confidence building, progression in a continuously ascending gradation of preventive diplomacy and elaboration of approaches to conflicts.

While the ARF proces should further consolidate and broaden its work in confidence-building measures to stir up trust, understanding and cooperation among ARF participants, the ministers also recognized the importance of making further progres forward preventive diplomacy, according to the chairman's statement.

The ministers underlined that the ARF's work in tackling terrorism depicted a ''milestone in the ARF's exhibition of a preventive role''

''They underscored the ARF proces of decision-making by means of consensus, moving at a pace comfortable to all ARF participants and ASEAN's part as the primary driving force of the ARF process'' the statement said.

The ARF is made up of representatives, usually the foreign ministers, from 23 countries -- the 10 members of ASEAN, Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, North and southward Korea, New Zealand, Papua recent Guinea, Russia and the United States.

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