Amid tight security, diplomats from ASEAN and their partners, which include the US, the EU and China have held high-profile talks in the Philippine capital.

On the agenda was a wide range of regional and international issues, such as climate change, security, terrorism and crisis in Sudan.

The representatives welcomed the UN Security Council’s approval of a new peacekeeping force to be deployed to Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed in over four years of fighting and famine.

The Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer promised to support the peacekeeping by sending doctors and nurses, while China called for efforts to reach a political solution to the crisis in the region.

US--ASEAN

The representatives in Manila also focussed on ties between the US and ASEAN. In his speech, Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo said America's presence in Asia had played a large role in shaping the region's development over the past decade.

He added that America's engagement in the region was "critical" in the face of the current global challenges, such as those posed by Iran and North Korea.

However, some delegates expressed their disappointment over US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s absence at the meeting, saying it might negatively impact US-ASEAN ties.

But Rice’s deputy, John Negroponte, leading the US delegation, played down these fears and stressed that Washington was very committed to maintaining good relations with ASEAN.

This view was also expressed by Sean McCormack, the US state department spokesman, last week:

'I don't think anybody really seriously questions our engagement in Southeast Asia. We have a deep involvement not only with ASEAN but with the individual countries in Southeast Asia. She did attend last year's meeting and I expect that she will at some point in the next 18 months travel to Southeast Asia as well.'

Europe--ASEAN

The European Union has also expressed its interest in Southeast Asia. Attending the meeting, the European foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the EU was following developments in the region with great interest and welcomed the plans to create a single market by 2015.

Meanwhile, Russia made a pitch for more cooperation. The Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the bloc that Moscow was keen on cooperating in the fields of science and technology, energy, and disaster prevention.

The forum also vowed to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other watchdogs to strengthen international nuclear and chemical safeguards, and agreed to help prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

On Thursday, the forum will cap days of meetings with the annual ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, summit. Apart from ten southeast Asian countries, seventeen other nations from across the globe will participate.

The issues likely to crop up at the meeting will be how to tackle serious security issues, terrorism and the de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.