vicky007

This is just the begining.......

http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG4_su...ewscode=112767.

India to attend first East Asia Summit in December 2005
Bangkok, July 28 (UNI) India, along with Australia and New Zealand, has been invited to attend the first East Asia Summit to be held in Kuala Lumpur in December this year.

The decision to include India in this key regional political and economic cooperation platform was taken yesterday in Vientiane by the foreign ministers of 10 Southeast Asian nations and their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea.

However, the foreign ministers deferred a decision on Moscow's request to be included in the first East Asia Summit (EAS) to be held after the annual ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit in the Malaysian capital in December.

Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said ASEAN had no concerns over Russia's participation in the summit but needed to consider the possibility of expanding the EAS beyond its 16 members.

ASEAN would continue discussions with Moscow on the issue, he told the Bangkok daily The Nation in Vientiane.

Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh is in the Laotian capital to represent India at the annual meeting with ASEAN foreign ministers today as well as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to be held tomorrow. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh is unlikely to attend because of the foreign policy debate in Parliament.

The Thai foreign minister told The Nation that ASEAN was disappointed by the absence of the foreign ministers of China, Japan and India, and the US Secretary of State in Vientiane to attend the ARF.

''However, the absence of the four ministers could not be considered to be a downgrading of the ARF,'' he was quoted as saying.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing left Vientiane after meeting the ASEAN ministers yesterday. The Chinese Ambassador to Laos will represent China at the ARF. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura too cut short his visit to the Laotian capital to rush to New York to support Japan's bid for a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council.

US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice had earlier declared that she would not be able to attend the Vientiane meeting, making her the first US Secretary of State to miss the ARF in two decades.