Co-operation Main Aim

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31084, 13 June 1966, Page 13

Co-operation Main Aim

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

SEOUL, June 12.

South Korea plays host on Tuesday to the first major international conference held in the country—a round-table meeting of nine Asian and Pacific nations at Foreign Ministers’ level.

A tenth country, Laos, is attending as an observer.

Political, economic and cultural co-operation will be the keynote of the three days of talks.

Most participants oppose any efforts at forming an anti-Communist or military alliance. But China and the Soviet Union claim that this is the real meaning of the conference.

The participating countries are Australia, Nationalist China, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, South Vietnam and South Korea. < All delegations, except those of Malaysia and New Zealand, will be headed by Foreign Ministers. Malaysian and Indonesian moves towards reconciliation and Japan’s resumption of relations with South Korea have improved the atmosphere for increased co-opera-tion in the Far East region. Some observers believe, however, that there will not be sufficient time at the conference for definite agreements among all or some of the nations on a new grouping. Officially called the Minis-

terial Meeting for Asian and Pacific Co-operation, the conference will open in Seoul on Tuesday with an address by President Pak Chung Hi, of South Korea. President Pak favoured a discussion on regional economic co-operation modelled on the European Common Market. “It will be difficult to reach an early agreement on this problem,” he said. A senior Korean official said that his Government was thinking of an annual meeting or a standing consultative body, but “this is a roundtable conference and no-one

is imoosing anything on anybody.”

Conference officials have taken pains to dispel misgivings, especially by Japan, that the Korean-conceived conference might lead to a military or antj-Communist alliance. In Bangkok, the Thai Foreign Minister, Thanat Khoman, said this week on leaving for Seoul: “We are not after any new grouping to work for anti-communism or anti-this or anti-that.”

Officials in Tokyo reflected this same viewpoint, and they were also cool towards the idea of an annual conference or a permanent body.