October 21, 2003	Tuesday	Sha'aban 24, 1424

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BANGKOK, Oct 20: The spectres of a nuclear North Korea, terrorism and stalled world trade talks dominated a summit of the 21-nation APEC forum which opened here on Monday with leaders focused on the threat these issues posed to their economies.

US President George Bush, on an Asian tour to rally support in the battle against terrorism and for reconstruction in Iraq, vowed to emphasise during the two-day talks that “this is still a dangerous world”.

However, some members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum said they were opposed to security matters sidelining a pressing agenda of economic issues, including the urgent need to re-start stalled multilateral trade talks.

“APEC was formed as an economic cooperation group. But we do not agree with taking away economic matters into security, military or politics, which are not really for APEC,” said outspoken Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Discussions over the North Korean nuclear weapons crisis nevertheless had top billing in bilateral leaders’ meetings on Monday, with the urgency highlighted by North Korea’s test-firing a short-range surface-to-ship missile.

Mr Bush said for the first time on Sunday that he would explore ways of satisfying North Korea’s demand for an assurance that the United States would not invade the people’s republic, but ruled out a bilateral non-aggression accord.

“Perhaps there are other ways we can look at to say exactly what I’ve said publicly on paper with our partners’ consent,” Mr Bush said after discussions on the issue with China’s President Hu Jintao.

APEC’s foreign and trade ministers meeting here last week rammed home the message that a poor security situation imperilled the economies of the group’s members, which account for some 60 per cent of the world’s economic output.—AFP