ASEAN denounce Taliban abductions

Manila, Aug 2: Terrorism took centre-stage at a meeting of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers today as the group denounced the abductions of South Koreans in Afghanistan.

''The ministers condemned in unequivocable terms the abduction of Korean nationals as a heinous act of terrorism,'' one diplomat said after a closed-door session of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum.

Earlier, the foreign secretary of the hosts Philippines, Alberto Romulo, said the crisis should be quickly resolved.

''We all wish the remaining 21 hostages are returned to their families as soon as possible,'' he said before the start of talks.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said he ''hoped for continued support for the early and safe resolution of the crisis''.

The Taliban kidnapped 23 South Korean church volunteers south of Kabul last month and have executed two of them. The hardline Islamist guerrillas have said they will kill the rest unless captured comrades were freed.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) brings together the 10-member Southeast Asian group with 17 dialogue partners, including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, the European Union and Australia.

Sri Lanka was inducted as the latest member of the group on Thursday. Its foreign minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, said terrorism stood out among issues confronting the international community ''by the sheer scale and intensity of destruction it has already caused and what it is capable of unleashing in the future''.

The South Asian island republic has been fighting a civil war with rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for almost 25 years.

''We would only at our own peril draw distinctions between the threat posed, for instance, by al Qaeda and the LTTE,'' Bogollagama told the gathering.

''A single terrorist act in one part of the globe will have an instant domino effect in markets far removed from it. Sharing of intelligence information assumes a sense of importance as never before,'' he said.

On the sidelines of the forum, North Korea has drawn much attention.

Other members of the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme are also in Manila, although there is no indication yet of any substantive discussions on the issue.

Diplomatic sources said Christopher Hill, the chief US envoy to the six-party talks, held a brief conversation with the North Korean delegation at a dinner last night, but gave no other details.

Reuters>