By ANTARA News,
Singapore : North Korea plans to sign a non-aggression treaty with its Southeast Asian neighbours following a key regional security gathering here next week, Singapore’s foreign ministry said Monday.
The announcement came on the heels of the latest round of six-party talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear programmes, at which Pyongyang agreed to disable its main nuclear facilities by the end of October.
North Korea told Singapore, current chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), that it would accede to the treaty next week.
The signing ceremony will take place after the ASEAN Regional Forum, Asia’s main security gathering, on July 24, the Singapore foreign ministry said.
“ASEAN warmly welcomes the DPRK’s decision,” it said, using the formal initials of the reclusive communist state which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006.
“ASEAN believes that the DPRK’s accession to the TAC will strengthen relations between ASEAN and the DPRK, and also help promote peace, security and cooperation in the region.”
The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), originally signed by ASEAN members in 1976, has since expanded to include other nations.
North Korea would be the 15th signatory from outside Southeast Asia.
“It is very significant,” Mely Caballero-Anthony, an associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told AFP.
She said that because the document tries to promote a peaceful approach to dispute resolution, North Korea’s signing would suggest a lessening of tensions with South Korea and the United States.
South Korea acceded to the treaty in November 2004.
“To this day, TAC remains the only indigenous regional diplomatic instrument providing a mechanism and processes for the peaceful settlement of disputes,” ASEAN says on its website.
North Korea has had longstanding relations with Southeast Asian states Singapore and Indonesia, and is already one of 27 ASEAN Regional Forum members — including ASEAN, the United States, European Union and South Korea.
North and South Korea have remained technically at war since a 1950-1953 conflict ended without a formal peace treaty between them. Their border is considered to be one of the world’s most dangerous military flashpoints.
The latest six-party deal on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament came on Saturday in Beijing, where talks had resumed after a nine-month hiatus.
In return for Pyongyang’s deactivating its Yongbyon reactor, the other five parties guaranteed delivery of all heavy fuel oil promised in exchange by the end of the same month.
Late last month Pyongyang made a declaration of its atomic activities, which analysts said is a step on the road to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
But they said it will take years to complete the journey.
Ties between North and South Korea worsened after President Lee Myung-Bak took office in February in Seoul, promising a tougher line on Pyongyang. The North suspended all government-to-government dialogue when he came to power.
The conservative Lee softened his stance with his proposal last week for talks on implementing summit deals reached by his liberal predecessors with the North.