MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will consult fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a possible consensus on how the regional bloc should treat North Korea amid that country’s continued missile tests, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said Friday.
The country chairs ASEAN this year and is hosting the 50th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and Post-Ministerial Conferences from August 2 to 8.
In a chance interview at the Manila Polo Club, Cayetano was asked about the Philippine response to US wishes for North Korea to be suspended from the 27-nation ASEAN Regional Forum, which will be meeting on Monday.
“Well, the chairmanship of the ASEAN is little bit peculiar because it’s a consensus-based organization,” Cayetano said. “So what I can do is after the dinner tonight, in a huddle, (is to) consult the other members. But it would be more prudent to consult all of the members and I predict that there will be two sides to it.”
“One of them will say that it’s time to make a stand and tell DPRK (North Korea) that if they continue to they cannot engage us this way. But the others will say: ‘But how can we engage if this is the only forum that they attend and then they will not be allowed to come and speak?’ So it’s a very hard decision,” he added.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho are attending the event. With the US and fellow ARF members Japan and South Korea expected to push for stronger actions against North Korea, a verbal showdown seems likely.
Last week, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Huio Choi led a delegation on a one-day visit to discuss preparations for the ARF, Cayetano said earlier.
At the anniversary of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, President Rodrigo Duterte called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a “fool” and “son of a bitch” for “playing with dangerous toys,” referring to the missile tests.
“That chubby face that looks kind. That son of a bitch. If he commits a mistake, the Far East will become an arid land. It must be stopped, this nuclear war,” Duterte said. “A limited confrontation and it blows up here, I will tell you, the fallout can deplete the soil, the resources and I don’t know what will happen to us.”
Cayetano said the Philippines shares the sentiments of the US, Japan and South Korea that Pyongyang’s missile testing “does nothing but destabilize the region and also creates an atmosphere that’s not conducive to resuming the talks. And also it courts accidents that can happen.”
And despite predicting different position among ASEAN members on North Korea’s continued presence in the ARF, Cayetano said “I think the world is united in supporting the United Nations Security Council resolution regarding the nuclearization … regarding the actions of DPRK in the last few months.”
At the same time Cayetano said the Philippines had been exploring the possibility of being a “peacemaker” but noted that “the problem now is that DPRK does not want to stop this.”
