Reporter

CEBU CITY—Asean leaders on Sunday urged Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program and to positively respond to other humanitarian concerns of the international community, including the hunger situation in that country and the abduction of foreign nationals.             

President Arroyo, who is Asean chairman, made the appeal at the 10th Asean-ROK Summit in Shangri-La’s Mactan Resort and Spa in Lapu-Lapu City, where she affirmed the Asean’s firm “commitment to urge North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons” and expressed its “great concern about recent developments in the Korean Peninsula.”   

“I hope that we’re all speaking with one voice in urging North Korea once again to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and to work towards the expeditious implementation of UN Security Council Resolution Nos. 1695 and 1718,” she said.    

UNSC Resolution 1695 and 1718, both issued last year, demand an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear program.              

The Asean also urged Pyongyang to “take concrete and effective steps towards the full implementation” of the Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of Six-Party Talks in Beijing on September 19, 2005, where it had committed to abandon nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and to return, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.                 

But an official summit statement said that Korean President Roh Moo Hyun sought to calm the leaders’ worries over Pyongyang’s nuclear development program, because although while Seoul believes its neighbor has nuclear arms, they have limited range.        

The statement quoted Roh as explaining that “the short range capability of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons should be no reason for an arms race in the region.”  

Asean Summit spokesman Victoriano Licaros said that Seoul, as well as Beijing, are not taking a hard-line stance on the issue.       

“It’s very well known that the Chinese would rather use diplomacy rather than hard measures. And the Koreans are saying that they don’t quite share also a hard line stance] with respect to North Korea,” Licaros said.

Besides the nuclear weapons issue, Mrs. Arroyo expressed the Asean’s hope “that we can all be in one voice in urging North Korea to respond to other security and humanitarian concerns of the international community including abductions abuse.” 

THE government is lining up several initiatives to help small exporters get over the appreciating peso, topped by the allocation of up to P300 million to support their capacity-building efforts.

CEBU CITY—Asean leaders on Sunday urged Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program and to positively respond to other humanitarian concerns of the international community, including the hunger situation in that country and the abduction of foreign nationals.

THE diminishing incidence of soured loans among banks has started approximating levels attained prior to the regionwide financial crisis in 1997, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.