SANTIAGO (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and other Asia-Pacific leaders muster in Chile this weekend to spur world trade and suppress terrorism, under the growing menace of nuclear proliferation.
Foreign and trade ministers of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum put the final touches on a joint statement, a draft copy of which was obtained by AFP, seeking to spur global trade talks while suppressing terrorism.
The statement, to be endorsed by policymakers including US Secretary of State Colin Powell, sets the pace for more freewheeling talks among the APEC leaders.
Ministers were meeting at a brick-and-glass conference center by the foothills of the soaring, snow-crested Andes, on the outskirts of Santiago. Military-style mounted police officers and police on foot carrying sidearms guarded the site.
Protests so far have been confined to central Santiago, where anti-riot police on Wednesday lobbed tear gas grenades and fired water cannons at students, some throwing rocks in protest at Bush's impending arrival and the APEC meeting.
Organizers said they hoped to get 10,000 people into the city center's streets on Friday for a march to Bustamante Park. A parallel, rival APEC conference will hold debates from then until Sunday.
At the APEC conference center, terrorism encroached deeper into the customarily dry trade and economic debate.
The leaked draft ministerial statement backs the World Trade Organisation's efforts to tear down barriers to cross-border trade and endorses guidelines to ensure a growing web of one-on-one and regional trade deals help the WTO talks.
"Ministers reiterated the commitment of each APEC member economy to fight terrorism and secure trade flows," it added.
They also "condemned, in the strongest terms, all acts of terrorism, including the most recent barbarous acts in Russia and Indonesia, and expressed their condolences to their peoples and governments," the statement said.
A group of armed commandos stormed a school in Beslan, north Ossetia, September 1, taking hostage more than 1,000 children, parents and teachers. More than 330 hostages, half of them children, were killed in a shootout with Russian security forces.
On September 9, a blast at Australia's Jakarta embassy killed nine people.
Powell, who joined a closed, working breakfast with fellow ministers at his last APEC conference early Thursday, is goading the Asia-Pacific axis to unite in a "war on terror" while giving hope of a solution to the North Korean nuclear weapons crisis and warning of worrisome developments in Iran's nuclear programme.
Pyongyang appears to be signalling a readiness to return to stalled multilateral talks instead of insisting on bilateral US-North Korea negotiations to resolve the crisis, Powell told reporters travelling with him to Santiago on Wednesday.
"We will have to wait and see," Powell said.
Three rounds of multilateral talks have taken place since the standoff erupted in October 2002, bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States in Beijing. All but North Korea are members of APEC.
"I will see what my Chinese and South Korean colleagues have picked up in recent days (about the North Korean stance)," he said.
Bush's priority when he joins the summit will be getting APEC "to become more energized" in backing the WTO, Powell said.
Also, "we have to work together on dealing with the potential for weapons of mass destruction, and there are other nonproliferation issues that will be discussed among the member states," Powell said.
Washington has information that Iran is seeking to adapt its missiles to carry nuclear warheads, Powell said.
"I have seen some information that would suggest that they've been actively working on delivery systems to deliver it," he said.
In a deal with the European Union's three biggest powers -- Britain, France and Germany -- late on Sunday, Iran agreed to freeze uranium-enrichment-related activities to ease fears that its fuel cycle work could be diverted to make an atomic bomb.
11/18/2004 - 18:49 GMT - AFP