South Korea imposed heavy security yesterday for a summit with Southeast Asian leaders following North Korean nuclear and missile tests that frayed nerves across the region.
The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea’s underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threatens to steal the limelight from economic and diplomatic matters.
The summit venue of Seogwipo — on the island of Jeju off the southern coast — is the city farthest away from North Korea. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed toward the North.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Some 5,000 police officers, including approximately 200 commandos and special vehicles that can analyze sarin gas and other chemicals, have been deployed nearby, security authorities said in a press release.
Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch.
Leaders of the 10 members of ASEAN began arriving for the two-day summit, which officially begins today and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak planned to use yesterday for individual meetings, including with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.
But concerns about North Korea’s most recent bout of saber-rattling loomed.
South Korean officials said on Saturday that spy satellites had spotted signs that North Korea may be preparing to transport a long-range missile to a launch site.
North Korea has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-president Chun Doo-hwan in Myanmar in 1983.
But Pyongyang has largely abandoned such overt tactics in the past two decades.
The UN Security Council is still weighing how to react to North Korea’s belligerent moves that have earned Pyongyang criticism from the US, Europe, Russia and even North Korea’s closest ally, China.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday that North Korea’s progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles was “a harbinger of a dark future” and had created an urgent need for more pressure on the reclusive communist government to change its ways.
Gates, speaking at a meeting of defense and security officials in Singapore, said that Pyongyang’s efforts posed the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region.
ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
In addition to the summit, a gathering of South Korean and Southeast Asian business leaders began yesterday with addresses by Lee and Abhisit, who both called for further cooperation to overcome the global economic crisis.
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