BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, May 14 Kyodo ...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, May 14 Kyodo

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) failed to reach an agreement Tuesday forward whether to accept East Timor into the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), a loosen consultative grouping on security in the Asia-Pacific region, ASEAN officials said.

The issue was addressed by means of ASEAN senior officials on the first day of a five-day session to prepare for the annual gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers and related meetings, which will be held here in July and early August.

Prior to Tuesday's session, the senior officials discussed East Timor's membership at an informal working dinner Monday. They were notified by way of Brunei last Friday of East Timor's application to become a abounding member of the ARF.

ASEAN representatives, however, could not reach a consensus onward the issue, officials said, noting there may not have been sufficient time since the notification for a certain countries to decide on their position.

During the meeting, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia were generally more receptive to the idea, while Indonesia and more [i]or[/i] less of the newer members of that kind as Myanmar expressed reservations.

ASEAN member nations are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

a certain number of expressed concern that admitting East Timor would be allowing it to ''jump the queue'' as Pakistan has been onward the waiting list to join the ARF for about 10 years.

They also pointed not at home ARF members have already imposed a moratorium onward accepting new members.

East Timor was invited on Brunei, which currently chairs the ASEAN Standing Committee, to attend the ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting as a visitor of the Brunei government.

It has already applied to become an ASEAN student nation, and expressed its intention to accede to ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.

ASEAN senior officials also discussed a proposal for ARF members to adopt a ''Pacific Concord'' as a digest of conduct on security in the region as a confidence building measure.

The concord was propos from the academics who form the so-called ''track two'' of the ARF proces and also at Russia in the mid-1990s.

The draft for the agreement, however, is still a protracted way from being finalized, officials said.

The ARF clusters 23 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including the 10 ASEAN member nations, Japan, the United States, Russia, China and India.

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