ARF to create body to check proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

MANILA (AP) - Asia's top security forum has decided to create a new group to help prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, officials said Wednesday.

Members of the ASEAN Regional Forum approved the formation of the body after it was proposed by a group of countries including the United States and Indonesia, said M.C. Abad, an ARF official.

ARF, which consists of 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and 17 other countries, is holding its annual meeting on Thursday. However, lower-level officials began discussing the terms of reference, or details, of the nonproliferation body on Wednesday, Abad said.

"Although we agreed to set up such a mechanism on disarmament and proliferation, we now have to work through the usual requirement of the terms of reference for that mechanism," said ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong.

Abad said North Korea's nuclear weapons program is among the areas the new group can examine. ARF members include the U.S., China, North and South Korea, Russia and Japan, which are involved in six-nation talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

ARF earlier vowed to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other watchdogs to strengthen international nuclear and chemical safeguards and boost ARF members' national mechanisms against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The idea to create a group-wide nonproliferation body is fairly new, and a paper on the group was submitted to ARF only three months ago, Ong said.