ASEAN, Indo-Pacific partners call for North Korea to comply with UN resolutions

Seoul, July 31 (IANS) Major Southeast Asian nations and their Indo-Pacific partners, including South Korea and the United States, have called for North Korea to “fully comply” with UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions banning its nuclear and missile programmes, as they wrapped up an annual ministerial meeting in Laos last week.The chairman’s statement from the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), released on Tuesday, also called on countries to “fully implement” UNSC resolutions on North Korea and make efforts towards denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported.”Many Ministers called on the DPRK (North Korea) to comply fully with all relevant UNSC Resolutions and called for peaceful dialogue among the concerned parties, and continue working towards the realisation of lasting peace, and stability in a denuclearised Korean Peninsula,” the statement read.”Many Ministers called for the full implementation of all relevant UNSC Resolutions and noted international efforts to bring about the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner,” it said.DPRK is the acronym for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.The ARF was one of the four meetings in Vientiane that brought together the top diplomats of 27 countries, comprising the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, the United States and others, for a gathering on regional security.It is also known as the only multilateral meeting in which North Korea participates.This year’s ARF has drawn attention as it was held amid the deepening relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow, notably after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un.Attending the meetings in Laos, Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul used the sessions to condemn the illegal military cooperation between North Korea and Russia as an outright violation of UNSC resolutions and a major threat to peace and security in the region and beyond.But, Seoul’s efforts to include the denunciation of the Pyongyang-Moscow ties fell through amid apparent opposition from Russia and North Korea, both directly involved in the meetings.Compared with last year’s version, the ARF statement addressed the call on North Korea being made by “Many Ministers,” as opposed to how similar calls were made by the “Meeting” in the previous statement, suggesting that not all countries had reached an agreement on the issue.Expectations had run high that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui could attend the meeting, but the North sent its ambassador to Laos, Ri Yong-chol, instead.–IANSint/sd/svn