JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s top diplomat warned Tuesday of the threat posed by nuclear weapons, saying Southeast Asia is “one miscalculation away from apocalypse” and pressing world powers to sign a treaty. to keep the region free of such weapons.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi has sounded the alarm ahead of a two-day summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations due to start later Tuesday in Jakarta. The agenda will highlight burmaThe deadly civil war of , the continuing tensions in the South Porcelain Mar and efforts to strengthen regional economies amid global headwinds brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Later in the week, the 10-nation bloc will meet with their Asian and Western counterparts, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russia’s policy watchdog. outside of China, Wang Yi.
The US-China rivalry is not formally on the ASEAN agenda, but it looms large in meetings of the bloc, an often unwieldy collective of democracies, autocracies and monarchies, with some members divided by loyalties to Washington or Beijing. .
“We cannot be truly safe with nuclear weapons in our region,” Marsudi told other ASEAN ministers. “With nuclear weapons, we are just one miscalculation away from apocalypse and global catastrophe.”
In 1995, the ASEAN states signed a treaty declaring Southeast Asia’s commitment to being a nuclear-weapon-free zone, one of five in the world. However, Marsudi regretted that none of the world’s major nuclear powers have joined the pact and called for renewed efforts to convince those states to sign it.
“The threat is imminent, so we can no longer play wait and see,” he said.
A draft statement due Wednesday mentions the possibility of a first nuclear-armed state eventually signing the treaty, but says there would have to be written assurances that the treaty was being ratified “without reservations.” The Associated Press obtained a copy of the draft.
The statement did not identify the possible status. However, two Southeast Asian diplomats who attended the Jakarta meetings told the AP it was China. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s generals have again been banned from attending the ASEAN summit for refusing to ease a deadly civil war sparked by the military’s takeover more than two years ago.
ASEAN has been under international pressure to address the crisis in Myanmar since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and plunged the country into deadly chaos.
More than 3,750 civilians, including pro-democracy activists, have been killed by security forces and nearly 24,000 arrested since the military coup, according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners, a human rights group that keeps track of of arrests and casualties.
Myanmar’s military government has largely ignored a plan by ASEAN heads of state that includes an immediate end to the violence, prompting the bloc to take an unprecedented step and ban Myanmar’s military leaders from attending its high-level meetings, including meetings of foreign ministers.
The generals responded by accusing ASEAN of violating the bloc’s fundamental principles of non-intervention in each other’s internal affairs.
With the Myanmar crisis dragging on, ASEAN members appear divided on how to proceed, with Thailand recommending easing punitive actions aimed at isolating Myanmar’s generals and inviting its top diplomats and military appointees to meetings of High profile.
Since taking over the rotating ASEAN presidency this year, Indonesia has started some 110 meetings with groups in Myanmar and provided humanitarian aid to build trust, Marsudi said.
At the summit, ASEAN foreign ministers are expected to renew a call for restraint in “activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability,” according to the draft statement, repeating language used in earlier statements that do not name China. .
ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam have been embroiled in simmering territorial conflicts with China and Taiwan for decades. ASEAN and China have been negotiating a non-aggression pact that is intended to prevent an escalation of the disputes, but the talks have faced years of delay.
The disputed waters have emerged as a sensitive front in the rivalry between China and the United States. Washington has challenged Beijing’s expansive territorial claims and regularly deploys warships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation and flyover patrols that have angered China.
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Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Jakarta, Indonesia contributed to this report.