ASEAN Charter to Create WMD-Free Zone

Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons would be prohibited from countries covered by the proposed Association of Southeast Asian Nations charter, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Oct. 31, 2006).

The charter would uphold a decade-old treaty to keep Southeast Asia free of nuclear weapons and would ban “all other weapons of mass destruction and interference by external powers,” according to a draft viewed by the AP.

Representatives from the ASEAN member states — Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — are scheduled to sign the charter during the group’s annual conference in November (Jim Gomez, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 25).

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