The US and China reassured Asian and European nations at security talks yesterday that they will try to end their recent tensions. But the forum was unable to lure North Korea back into dialogue.
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan (唐家璇) said his country valued its relations with the US and will work with Washington to ensure peace and stability in the region.
"Following a period of difficulties, China-US relations, which capture universal attention, have recently been on the way to improvement,'' Tang said in a speech to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).
The forum, sponsored by the 10-member ASEAN, includes the US, China, Russia, South Korea, the EU and other nations. North Korea attended as an observer.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, returning to Vietnam for the first time since his wartime service of the 1960s, assured the group that the US put a priority on relations with China and with the Asia-Pacific in general, an ASEAN diplomat said.
In a meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, Powell stressed that "the US remained committed in the region, and that the administration was very focused on Asia," Thai spokesman Norachit Sinhaseni said.
Tang joined Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in attacking Washington's controversial space-based missile defense plan.
He told the delegates that "Insistence on developing a missile defense program will upset the global strategic equilibrium, undermine regional peace and stability and adversely affect the international arms control and non-proliferation process."
The US plan would also "do no good to trust and cooperation between countries," Tang said.
Ivanov said Russia wanted "consolidation and development of a modern system of international and bilateral arrangements in the areas of arms control and disarmament."
The ARF also tackled another potential regional flashpoint -- the conflicting territorial claims of several countries including China to islands in the South China Sea, notably the Spratlys.
ASEAN foreign ministers, in talks here this week, made progress on a code of conduct involving China to prevent conflict in the sea.
"However, there remains a number of issues which we cannot agree, including the adoption of the [code]," Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien told a concluding news conference. "This will be further discussed by the ASEAN countries."
Completion of the proposed code has been delayed by a lack of agreement among claimant nations on the area to be covered.
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