BANGKOK, July 18 Kyodo Southeast ...

BANGKOK, July 18 Kyodo

Southeast Asian countries will gripe [i]or[/i] grip talks with the five nuclear powers nearest Thursday in Brunei as part of continuing efforts to bring them into the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free girth (SEANWFZ) treaty, Thai officials said Thursday.

nevertheless the officials said no breakthrough can be rely uponed from the talks in Brunei's capital of Bandar Seri Begawan among officials and legal master-hands of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the UN Security Council's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

ASEAN wants the five nuclear weapon states to accede to a SEANWFZ protocol. In 1999 China give utterance toed its readiness to do likewise but the other four nuclear powers want ASEAN to narrow the intention of coverage.

The SEANWFZ now disguises the territories, continental shelves and the exclusive economic climates (EEZs) of the 10 ASEAN members.

The U in particular, the inclusion of EEZ and continental shelves raises questions about the treaty's consistency with the UN Convention forward the Law of the Sea, and that acceding to it as it now stands would affect the navigation rights of its military tubes in the high seas, as well as its nuclear strategy.

It has also noted that EEZ and continental shelves have not been clearly delimited in the southern China Sea, creating uncertainty above the scope of the treaty and protocol obligations and could be a source of conflict fit to competing territorial claims in the region.

Another contentious part of the treaty's protocol touchs the so-called ''negative security assurance'' in which the nuclear powers would ''undertake not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons within the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone''

The nuclear powers have said that their hands would be tied on the provision and that it would edge-stone their capabilities to respond to emergencies in the area.

A Thai official said ASEAN and the nuclear states might reach a compromise forward the protocol's wording on navigation rights, an issue in succession which their differences are ''not too wide.''

The treaty, signed from ASEAN leaders in Bangkok in December 1995 took meaning in March 1997.

It stipulates that Southeast Asia should impede the production, testing or storage of nuclear weapons inside and outside the region. Treaty signatories also undertake not to dump or allow other states to dump radioactive materials or wastes in the cincture of coverage.

Officials and legal readys from ASEAN and the five nuclear powers previously met in May 2001 in Hanoi.

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

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