Korea calls for close ties with Asean

Seogwipo (Bangkok Post)- South Korea imposed heavy security on Sunday for a summit with Asean leaders following North Korean nuclear and missile tests that frayed nerves across the region.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Sunday for closer business and cultural ties with Southeast Asia to create a common economic community that is a leader in green growth.

Lee, who invited leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian nations to commemorate 20 years of relations between the Seoul and the bloc, hailed the expansion of their economic ties.

Total trade has grown 11 times over the past two decades to $90.2 billion last year, he said, and is expected to increase to $150 billion by 2015.

"We must strengthen our economic partnership, expand cultural exchange and become partners in our common goal of taking the lead in the new era of green growth," Lee told business executives ahead of a summit on Monday and Tuesday. "We have the vast potential for future growth."

The two sides have concluded free trade agreements in goods and services and plan to sign an investment accord at the summit.

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 the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed toward the north, amid signs Pyongyang was preparing to stage a new long-range missile exercise.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was among the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) attending the two-day summit, which begins Monday and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc.

Some 5,000 police officers, including approximately 200 commandos, and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals have been deployed near the venue of the Seogwipo summit.

Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.

South Korean officials said Saturday that spy satellites had spotted signs that the North may be preparing to transport a long-range missile to a launch site.

The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-President Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.

On Saturday in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned at an annual meeting of defense and security officials that the United States would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea, while China called for calm.

Gates said North Korea’s defiant acts could spark an arms race with serious consequences for Asia.

“Our goal is complete and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” Gates said.