Asia-Pacific Talks May Focus on N. Korea

Vietnamese bride Bui Minh Thu and groom Nguyen Thanh Linh gather for pre-wedding photos Sunday, Nov. 12, 2006, at the gates of Nam Thang Long Industrial Park on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam. With a booming economy and a move towards a more open society Vietnam is poised to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference summit this week. (AP Photo/David Longstreath) (David Longstreath - AP)

HANOI, Vietnam -- North Korea is not invited to Pacific Rim summits, but concern over its nuclear program will be keenly felt among world leaders gathering here for the 21-nation annual meeting this coming weekend.

Leaders of all five countries negotiating the crisis with Pyongyang _ including President Bush _ will be at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi on Nov. 18-19.

The U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, plus North Korea, have been involved in talks aimed at getting the North to drop its suspect nuclear program, which took an ominous step with its first test of an atomic bomb Oct. 9. Pyongyang has since agreed to return to the stalled talks, which are tentatively scheduled to resume after the APEC summit.

"It's inevitable that North Korea will be the focus of everyone's attention," said Daniel Sneider, an associate director of Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. "It's the first time everybody's going to be together, especially at the head-of-state level, since the missile launches and the nuclear test."

There has been speculation that the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea will meet together during APEC. At the very least, there will be intensive diplomacy aimed at reaching as much consensus as possible before sitting down with the North's negotiators.

Few expect major policy agreements to emerge from the summit, which has become a convenient place for world leaders to discuss issues of common concern, economic or otherwise. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush has used the annual meeting to discuss security issues.

But even if the North Korea issue is the focus, a lot of work on trade will take place, said Brantly Womack, a professor of international relations at the University of Virginia.

While the leaders' summit gets the bulk of the attention, APEC is actually a series of meetings throughout the year about trade, tourism, business development and other economic issues. Just before the summit, business leaders from around the Pacific Rim will participate in a chief executive officers' forum.

"The ordinary business of APEC has to deal with the common technical problems of globalization and the common commitment to more and more economic openness," Womack said. "The senior leaders meeting is the high point of the APEC show, but a good deal of what goes on in terms of actual accomplishment will happen before then, and it won't be very spectacular."

APEC was founded in 1989 to enhance economic growth, from North and South America on one side of the Pacific Rim to Asia, Australia and New Zealand on the other.

Members are expected to seek ways to breathe life into broken-down World Trade Organization talks aimed at helping developing nations perform more effectively in the global trade arena by trimming tariffs and subsidies protecting farmers in the U.S. and Europe, behemoths against whom smaller nations find it hard to compete.

Each APEC nation also comes to Hanoi with its own set of concerns and objectives.

In addition to worries about North Korea, the Japanese are likely to try to build momentum in rebuilding relations with China and South Korea, which have been strained by historical and territorial disputes.

With Russia's relations cooling with the United States and Europe, President Vladimir Putin is likely to use the summit to deepen political ties in the region.

"Russia is trying to be taken as an important regional player in both Europe and in Asia," said Eric Kraus, head of the Moscow-based Nikitsky Russia fund.

The summit is expected to draw about 10,000 people, including many international business leaders, to Vietnam's capital. The U.S. delegation alone is expected to number 1,000 people, many of whom will provide security for Bush, the second U.S. president to visit since the end of the Vietnam War.

"It's a friendly American invasion," said Ton Nu Thi Ninh, deputy chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, Vietnam's legislature.