‘US-Asean summit to tackle NoKor’s rocket launch’

MANILA, Philippines – Aside from “bullying” by China in the West Philippine and South China Seas, the upcoming US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in California will also take up the recent rocket launch of North Korea, a foreign affairs official said yesterday.

“We’ve heard that, and on the part of the Philippines, we have actually issued statements on the matter,” assistant secretary Ma. Hellen Barber-de la Vega of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) Office of ASEAN Affairs said.

The DFA confirmed that not only will Beijing’s reclamation in the West Philippine Sea – where several other ASEAN-member countries have overlapping claims – be taken up, but also the nuclear technology being tested by Pyongyang.

“We have condemned North Korea’s actions and strongly urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile technology programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner,” she said.

The government has reiterated its readiness to work with international partners to ensure peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world, she told journalists in a news briefing in Malacañang.

De la Vega disclosed that apart from President Aquino’s attendance at the Feb. 15-17 summit in Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California, he would also meet with businessmen and Filipinos in Los Angeles and receive an honorary degree at the Loyola Marymount College.

The first meeting of the ASEAN member-states in the US would be in a “retreat format” where discussions among heads of state will be open and informal, De la Vega said.

Meanwhile, China yesterday responded to a report that the US and India are discussing joint naval patrols in the disputed South China Sea, warning that interference from countries outside the region threatens peace and stability.

“No cooperation between any countries should be directed at a third party,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in an emailed statement to Reuters, in response to a request for comment on the report published on Wednesday.