APEC ministers: Terrorism a serious threat to Asia Pacific region
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-16 16:39

Pacific Rim ministers on Wednesday warned that their region is at significant risk of terrorist attacks, and endorsed a plan to test whether major airports in their countries could repel a terrorist attack using shoulder-fired missiles.

Terrorism was a "serious threat to the security, stability and growth of the APEC region," foreign and trade ministers from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum said in a joint statement adopted Wednesday.

The wide-ranging statement sets out APEC's position on a wide range of issues that could threaten their economies, including trade protection, bird flu and corruption. The statement will be handed to APEC leaders for approval when they meet for their annual summit on Friday and Saturday.

On security, the ministers said they "renewed commitments to dismantle terrorist groups and eliminate the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction and other security threats," the statement said.

They praised several projects aimed at shielding trade and economic development from terrorist attacks, including a U.S. initiative to assess sometime in 2006 the vulnerability of member countries' key international airports to attacks by terrorists using shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, known as MANPADS.

"Mitigating the threat of MANPADS attacks and enhancing the security of civil aviation in APEC would ensure the continued flow of people and services for business and tourism," the ministers said.

Fears that MANPADS have become a weapon of terrorists have grown since suspected extremists fired SA-7 missiles that narrowly missed a Boeing airliner evacuating Israeli civilians in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who joined the ministers in their meetings in the South Korean port city of Busan, called on Asia Pacific countries to jointly work to deny criminals and terrorists access to deadly weapons like MANPADS.

Rice called on APEC's wealthier economies to help its poorer members battle terrorists by providing funds and security assistance.

"In the past year, we have seen that the threat of global terrorism is still very real," Rice told the ministers, citing recent terror attacks in Indonesia, Russia and the Philippines.

APEC security officials fear that a major terrorist attack could deal a serious blow to trade and investment in the Asia Pacific region, which accounts for more than a third of the world's population (2.6 billion people) about 60 percent of the world's GDP and nearly half of global trade.