North Korea boycotts talks on Asian security
International Herald Tribune
JULY 29, 2006
The Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR North Korea on Friday spurned appeals to join talks on its nuclear and missile programs, and the United States and other regional powers went ahead with a meeting on Asian security without the isolated, Communist country.

With little sign of diplomatic progress on North Korea, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked on ways to craft a solution to the Middle East conflict.

Rice said Friday that she would return to the Middle East to work with others on trying to bring an end to the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting.

At a security forum held by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Rice also tried to assuage the concerns of Muslim countries in Asia about the conflict in Lebanon. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the meeting chanting slogans against the United States and Israel.

"I want you to know we have heard precisely your concerns," she said, addressing foreign ministers of the Asean Regional Forum, which includes 25 Asian and Western countries plus the European Union.

Hundreds of anti-U.S. protesters, led by the Malaysian prime minister's son- in-law, broke through a police cordon Friday and marched to the convention center where Rice was meeting with the other foreign ministers.

There were no clashes or injuries, and the protesters dispersed after about two hours.

The demonstrators, mostly members of Malaysia's coalition parties, raised their fists and chanted slogans against Washington's backing of Israel in the Lebanon conflict.

"Dr. Rice, I will not leave until you come out!" shouted Khairy Jamaluddin, the protest leader, as the riot police held him back at the doorway to the convention center.

The police tried to form a human barrier to stop the protesters, who were wearing orange bandannas with the slogan "Save Lebanon, Stop Israel." But hundreds broke through the cordon before being pushed back.

Such protests are rare in Malaysia, where a police permit is required for public demonstrations.

North Korea, meanwhile, which says it has nuclear weapons and drew a UN Security Council rebuke after conducting missile tests this month, said the United States must drop its economic sanctions before any negotiations occur.

The sanctions against banks that are linked to North Korea have sapped the Communist country's cash flow.

South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, said Friday that he had briefly met his counterpart from North Korea but was skeptical about chances for a resumption of the stalled nuclear talks.

"I met Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun yesterday," Ban told journalists at the Kuala Lumpur convention center.

"There seems not much chance for North Korea to join the proposed six- way ministerial meeting" during the forum, he added.

The North Korean foreign minister told delegates to the forum that his country might pull out of the security conference if it condemned North Korean actions, diplomats said.

The North's diplomatic isolation was evident in the decision by the United States and other countries to hold a separate meeting on the sidelines of the forum without Paek, ostensibly to discuss Northeast Asian security.

The addition of peripheral players in the North Korean standoff was a delicate maneuver to avoid the impression that countries in the six-party process were ganging up on North Korea.

The meeting ended without a joint statement. South Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Choo Kyu Ho, said Seoul had urged more efforts to reopen the six-party talks.

Pepper spray hits Mahathir

Mahathir bin Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, was attacked with pepper spray Friday in what he claimed was an attempt to stop his criticism of the government, The Associated Press reported from Kuala Lumpur.

Mahathir, 81, had just arrived at the airport in Kota Bahru, the capital of Kelantan State, when an unidentified assailant fired pepper spray at him.

"I am disappointed because this is not our way," Mahathir told reporters. "We are in a country where people are not violent. If they do not want to hear anything they walk away."

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune