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APEC summit ends with anti-terror pledge

Lee Yuan-tseh, center, President Chen Shui-bian's special emissary to APEC, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the closing ceremony of the two-day summit in Bangkok yesterday. PHOTO: CNA

Tying security to economic growth, Pacific Rim leaders ended their annual summit yesterday with a pledge to "dismantle" terrorist groups, block the spread of weapons of mass destruction and to try again to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The declaration at the 21-member APEC summit came after the reclusive communist state conducted one and possibly two missile tests into the Sea of Japan in what US officials called a provocative act.

US President George W. Bush campaigned for his war on terror throughout the two-day meeting despite complaints by some countries that APEC's traditional economic focus had been blurred. Bush also won support for a new multilateral push to end the year-old nuclear standoff with Pyongyang.

Apparently mirroring misgivings by some member states, the summit's final written communique did not specifically mention North Korea's nuclear threat.

However, a verbal closing statement read by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on behalf of the leaders called for a restart of six-nation talks to resolve the crisis and establish a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Thaksin, flanked by the 20 other APEC heads of government and representatives, stressed that the North's security concerns also must be addressed. Pyongyang has long claimed that the US is plotting to invade it -- a charge dismissed by Bush, though he has refused the North's demands that Washington sign a formal nonaggression treaty.

The communique urged all countries to "eliminate the severe and growing danger problem posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction" and to "dismantle fully and without delay transnational terrorist groups that threaten the APEC economies."

It also called for tough restrictions on shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that could be used by terrorists to shoot down civilian aircraft.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad complained that a preoccupation with security topics was diluting APEC's core mission of economic reform. He also continued to stir up controversy by repeating his charge that Jews control the world -- even after criticism from Bush and others.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said terrorism must be stopped to ensure economic stability, telling others in APEC they must employ "closer cooperation and stronger measures to address both the symptoms and root causes of the problem," according to an account on state-run Xinhua News Agency.

"If there is no security it is going to be very difficult to have any trade at all," Chilean President Ricardo Lagos told a news conference yesterday.

On the economic front, the leaders urged the WTO to revive global trade talks that collapsed last month in the Mexican resort of Cancun. APEC's two-day summit did not offer a formula to break the impasse at the WTO, but leaders said negotiators should go back to work on a text they had left behind.

Before heading to their final meeting, the leaders gathered in an ornate royal palace for a group photograph. Following a long-standing tradition, they wore shirts of the host country -- in this case, tailored Thai silk ones, featuring animal and floral patterns.

North Korea rattled nerves with an anti-ship missile exercise off its east coast as part of its annual military maneuvers. It was North Korea's first missile test-firing since April and called attention to Bush's fledgling proposal to defuse tensions by offering Pyongyang a five-nation security guarantee if it would scrap its nuclear weapons program.

Japan said yesterday that it suspected North Korea may have test-fired a second missile, although South Korea disputed Tokyo's contention.

The US pressed the summit to take note of Bush's initiative, which would commit the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea to a no-invasion pledge, though many details are not yet clear.

The scourge of terrorism was a prominent summit topic. Bush personally thanked Thailand for the capture of Asia's top terror suspect, known as Hambali, who is accused of masterminding bomb attacks against US and other Western targets across Southeast Asia.
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