BRUSSELS, Sept 22: East Asian and European Union leaders meeting in Copenhagen on Monday and Tuesday will strive to open a dialogue between religions and cultures in addition to discussing Iraq, Kashmir and North Korea.

EU diplomats preparing for the two-day Asia Europe Meeting or summit say the 25 leaders will hold a special “retreat” to dialogue on common values and try and lay to rest the spectre of an east-west clash of civilisations.

Leaders’ talks will not be publicised, however. “There will no officials or note-takers eavesdropping _ there may be interpreters but they will be whispering in the leaders’ ears,” said an EU diplomat.

“The idea is to have an altogether informal and non-polemic discussion of the common values of ASEM partners across the cultural, ethnic, geographical, religious and socio-economic diversity of Asia and Europe,” Danish Prime Minister and summit chairman Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a letter to ASEM leaders.

“Such a dialogue has become even more imperative in the context of Sept 11,” the letter said.

ASEM leaders will also discuss American plans for military action against Iraq and tensions in Kashmir, but EU diplomats said the focus of discussions would be more on recent Japanese and South Korean contacts with the North Korean communist regime.

The EU has long backed engagement with Pyongyang, rejecting American descriptions of the regime as part of an “axis of evil”,including Iraq and Iran.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s recent ground-breaking visit to North Korea has been welcomed by EU governments as contributing to peace and stability in north east Asia.

ASEM leaders are not expected to decide on expanding the group despite a new application to join ASEM made by Russia. India and Pakistan have also shown interest in joining ASEM in the past along with Australia and New Zealand.

But with the EU opposing Myanmar’s membership because of the country’s alleged human rights violations, diplomats say the entire expansion issue will be put off until the next ASEM summit in Vietnam in 2004.