PHNOM PENH, Nov 5: Southeast Asian leaders forged closer economic links with Japan and India at their annual summit that ended here Tuesday, while the security dangers posed by North Korea also dominated the agenda.

The leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) held separate meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who both sought to push free trade pacts.

Koizumi sealed an agreement during a two-hour meeting with his Asean counterparts to forge ahead with negotiations on a free trade area that could be realised within 10 years.

The agreement, to negotiate a framework to develop the free trade zone, could build an economy worth at least 4.9 trillion dollars.

“We viewed that a comprehensive economic partnership between Asean and Japan would provide greater market opportunities to their economies, through the creation of larger and new markets,” the leaders said in a joint declaration to announce the signing.

Koizumi arrived in Phnom Penh looking to ensure Japan, one of the biggest investors in the region but facing declining influence because of its long-suffering economy, was not left behind following Asean’s signing of a historic free-trade pact with China at the summit on Monday.

Under the Asean-China deal, they would create the world’s biggest free trade area by 2010-2015, embracing 1.7 billion people and trade worth 1.2 trillion dollars.

Negotiations to set up the Japan-Asean deal are not as advanced as the group’s dealings with China.

The Asean leaders and Koizumi also discussed North Korea after a warning from the Stalinist state that it would “reconsider” its moratorium on missile tests if normalisation talks with Japan failed to make progress.

But Koizumi shrugged off the threat in a press conference.

“I do not expect the North Koreans will trample on the fundamental principles and the spirit of that declaration,” Koizumi said, in reference to a commitment by Kim Jong-Il in September this year that the missile moratorium would stay.

Koizumi’s comments came a day after he joined China, South Korea and the Asean nations at the summit in urging North Korea to immediately end its nuclear weapons programme.

Following the summit with Koizumi, Asean and Vajpayee held talks that officials said could lead to yet another free trade agreement.

“The prime minister wants to work towards a free trade agreement with Asean within the next 10 years,” Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said after the meeting.

“We are not in competition with Asean or any group of countries within Asean.”

If realised, the agreement would create a market to include some 1.5 billion consumers with a combined gross national product of 1.7 trillion dollars.

Vajpayee’s mission in Phnom Penh was the first time a leader from the subcontinent had addressed an Asean summit, and all parties pledged to use the occasion as a platform to build stronger ties.

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Suk-Soo also held summit talks with Asean, while South African President Thabo Mbeki spoke to the regional leaders on building Asian-African ties.

Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.

Next summit in Bali: In a message of defiance, the Asean leaders announced that Indonesia’s Bali island, the site of last month’s devastating terrorist attack that killed more than 190 people and threw the region into deep turmoil, will host next year’s summit.

“From the Indonesia perspective, it is an affirmation of their determination to cope with this legacy and to show the world that they are on top of it (terrorism),” incoming Asean secretary general Ong Keng Yong told AFP.

“Terrorism cannot be wiped out but you can signal to everybody that you are on top of it and you are not going to be intimidated by the terrorism threat.”

Asean leaders had spent a large part of the two-day summit trying to reassure the international community that they were serious in ridding the region of terrorism.—AFP