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Yesterday, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived here for Asian security talks but protesters made it clear that they did not welcome her.
More than 100 anti-war protesters gathered outside the KLCC convention centre, demanding that Dr Rice leave.
The demonstrators were from the Anti-War Coalition which is made up of some 20 non-governmental organisations. They waved banners reading "Condoleezza Get Out", while shouting slogans such as "US is the No 1 terrorist".
If these protests against the US' position on the Middle East crisis are anything to go by, Dr Rice's meeting with Foreign Ministers of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) and their dialogue partners here may not be an easy one.
With the Middle East and North Korea expected to be high on the agenda for today's Asean Regional Forum (ARF), Asean leaders will press Dr Rice to push for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East, and call for the resumption of dialogue on the Korean peninsula crisis, sparked by Pyongyang firing missiles earlier this month.
Several Asean officials have criticised the US for being too soft on Israel, whose war against Hezbollah has destroyed parts of Beirut and claimed many lives. Asean had also issued a statement calling for a ceasefire and a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Foreign ministers from the 10-nation Asean plus China, Japan and South Korea have expressed their concern over Israel's "apparently deliberate targeting" of a UN post in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. The attack left four UN observers dead.
"The United States, which has the greatest influence on the Israelis, must encourage them to take a decision to stop all these bombings," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said earlier.
In a briefing after the Post Ministerial Conferences here, Dr Rice said: "We are deeply concerned and I am willing ... to go back to the Middle East at any time ... I think we can move toward a sustainable ceasefire that can end the violence."
Nonetheless, the Asean ministers said they would raise the issue of the Israeli airstrike on the UN post with Dr Rice.
Meanwhile, North Korea will not rejoin six-nation nuclear talks until the US drops financial sanctions, a spokesman for the country's delegation to the ARF said yesterday. The announcement followed feverish diplomacy aimed at arranging an informal session of the six-party talks at the ARF. - TODAY/fa
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