APEC nations back pressure on N. Korea

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM —  The United States and its partners in the campaign to force North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program won the support Sunday of a summit of Pacific Rim nations, the latest effort to step up pressure in slow-moving talks with the isolated Pyongyang government.

The declaration was issued as an informal statement delivered by the conference host, the president of Vietnam, rather than as a formal paper -- a distinction suggesting a less-authoritative step.

It was issued at the conclusion of the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, shortly before President Bush, who spent the weekend in Hanoi, flew to Ho Chi Minh City.

Bush came to Asia to attend the Pacific Rim economic summit. But issues of nuclear proliferation and security have formed the backdrop each day of his visit, from a speech in Singapore on Thursday in which he called for broad cooperation throughout the region to corral North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, to the likely focus on Islamic-based terrorism this afternoon in Indonesia. Security concerns in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, were limiting his visit to barely six hours.

At the conclusion of the Hanoi meeting, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet read a statement saying that North Korea’s test of a nuclear device on Oct. 9, and its missile tests three months earlier, posed “a nuclear threat” to peace and security and to the summit nations’ goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. He called for full implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, which include the threat of sanctions to pressure North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapons program.

The statement came a day after South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told Bush that his government could not commit to boarding North Korean ships suspected of carrying nuclear-related cargo.

White House officials Sunday cited the statement as a sign that the United States and its allies remained on the same track regarding North Korea. And David McCormick, a deputy White House national security advisor, said the failure to present the declaration as a formal, written document was not a setback.

In a separate discussion, McCormick said, Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao had agreed “on the path ahead” in dealing with North Korea. McCormick and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said Bush and Hu had not set specific conditions to present to Pyongyang.

The Korean situation also formed a backdrop to a meeting between Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

China, Russia, Japan, the United States and South Korea, all members of the economic group, have been conducting on-again, off-again talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program. The North has only recently agreed to resume the six-party discussions intended to persuade it to end its weapons efforts, including such steps as shutting down a five-megawatt nuclear reactor.

“The North Koreans have to demonstrate seriousness,” Snow said to reporters aboard Air Force One as Bush flew south to Ho Chi Minh City. Bush has said that among the measures the United States would offer to entice North Korea to cooperate would be a formal declaration that the Korean War, fought more than 50 years ago between the North and South, was at an end. Such a statement has never been made. The summit also produced what U.S. officials presented as a strong commitment to renewed global trade talks, which have broken down despite pledges to liberalize international trade practices through reduced tariffs and subsidies and greater market access.

Reflecting the political pressure that makes trade pacts increasingly difficult to achieve, the summit called for consideration of an already expressed goal of a free-trade zone encompassing the nations of the Pacific Rim in the Americas and Asia.

As expected, U.S. and Russian representatives signed an arduously negotiated trade agreement that is a key step in Russia’s joining the World Trade Organization.

The president plans to use his morning schedule today in this vibrant city, still remembered as Saigon -- its name until the communists emerged victorious from the Vietnam War in 1975 -- to draw attention to the Vietnamese government’s program to modernize the economy through market reforms. The national economy grew 8.4% last year.

His planned stops included a visit to a capitalist institution with a decidedly communist name: The Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center -- the stock exchange, albeit a state-controlled agency.

But while Bush’s focus was on economic shifts, Vietnam’s record on political and religious rights came into question.

Philosophy professor and political activist Nguyen Chinh Ket said in a conference call with reporters that police agencies prohibited him and several other dissidents from conducting a news conference at the Sheraton Hotel in the glitzy but small heart of Ho Chi Minh City. Ket said he was not allowed to leave his home, and another activist was detained by police. Police also interfered with a Buddhist group’s plans to conduct a protest Sunday calling for greater freedom of religion in Vietnam, the activist said.

Bush was to fly out of Ho Chi Minh City from Tan Son Nhat Airport, which was the main air operations center for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. A tire problem with Air Force One briefly caused officials to consider using another aircraft to fly to Indonesia. The problem was later resolved.

Early Sunday morning in Hanoi, the president and First Lady Laura Bush attended an interdenominational worship service at the Cua Bac Cathedral that combined elements of the Roman Catholic liturgy and an evangelical service. It was conducted in Vietnamese and largely in song.

“A whole society is a society which welcomes basic freedoms, and there’s no more basic freedom ... than the freedom to worship as you see fit,” the president said, using his visit to the cathedral to signal continuing pressure on the communist government to allow unrestricted practice of religious beliefs.

His attendance, he said, was “our way of ... urging societies to feel comfortable with, and confident in saying to their people, if you feel like praising God you’re allowed to do so in any way you see fit.”

The church seats about 500 people in wooden pews; it was not full Sunday.

james.gerstenzang @latimes.com