NO PLANS FOR NEW ALLIANCE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31645, 3 April 1968, Page 20

NO PLANS FOR NEW ALLIANCE

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 1. There are no plans to turn the Association of South-East Asian Nations into a military alliance, according to the leader of the Philippines delegation to the South-East Asian Treaty Organisation’s Ministerial Council meeting (Mr J. D. Ingles).

Speaking to reporters after making an official call on the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake), Mr Ingles said that as far as the Philippines was concerned, S.E.A.T.O. provided sufficient protection against aggression. A.S.E.A.N., comprising Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, was created at the end of last year to promote regional co-operation. Mr Ingles, who is the Philippines Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said his j Government had received re-i ports from some of the capi-l tals of A.S.E.A.N. member! countries suggesting that the association could be turned into a militap' alliance. He appreciated the hopes of Malaysia and Singapore to make A.S.E.A.N. a military' alliance but, he said, recent top-level diplomatic visits between Indonesia and Malaysia had not led to any military alliance for the area but merely a call for a treaty of friendship. “So maybe the time is not yet ripe for a military

A.5.E.A.N.,” Mr Ingles said. “Such an alliance would also be in conflict with in no nesia’s neutralist foreign policy. “Our own attitude is that we have 5.E.A.T.0., and A.S.E.A.N. could never replace it, because its members do not have the military power the S.E.A.T.O. members possess.”