Ahead of a group meeting with his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Powell met separately with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, whose country is a key US ally on North Korea, and was later due to see Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.

Powell arrived at a military airbase in the Indonesian capital Jakarta after visiting Sudan, en route to which he made clear Washington's intention to keep pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea is "what we are going to be doing in Indonesia for the next two days", he told reporters accompanying him on his way to Friday's annual meeting of the 23-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

ARF, the Asia-Pacific's only security forum, includes all six countries involved in talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programs -- China, Russia, the United States, Japan and North and South Korea.

In addition to Kawaguchi, Powell is to meet separately South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon and Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on the sidelines of the forum.

US officials were coy on a possible Powell get-together with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun, although a Pyongyang official said Wednesday that a would happen if Washington asked for one.

Powell and Paek met briefly on the sidelines of the 2002 ARF in Brunei in what was the last face-to-face cabinet-level contact between the two countries.

A third round of six-party talks ended Saturday in Beijing, where the US put forward a new plan which would give the North three months to shut down and seal its nuclear weapons facilities in return for major economic and diplomatic rewards.

North Korea rejected the proposal as unrealistic, but Washington said it expects the North to study it, as the meeting produced signs of flexibility but no concrete progress. The participants did agree to meet again by the end of September.

The US offer was the first significant overture to Pyongyang since US President George W. Bush took office in early 2001 and placed Stalinist North Korea on an "axis of evil," alongside Iran and pre-war Iraq.

Terrorism, including the threat of seaborne attacks in the piracy-prone Malacca Strait, is also expected to figure large on ARF's agenda. The United States and Singapore are worried that terrorists could hijack an oil or gas tanker and use it as a floating bomb in a maritime version of 9/11.

However, Washington recently backed away from suggestions that US forces might help patrol the waterway separating Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia after it raised hackles in Indonesia and Malaysia.

About half the world's oil supplies pass through the strait.

The Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah has launched a spate of bombings in Indonesia and the Philippines in recent years and has plotted attacks in Thailand and Singapore. JI's nightclub bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali, which killed 202 people in October 2002, were the worst terror attacks since September 11.

Forum members will also discuss this week's handover of power in Iraq. ASEAN chair Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, was fiercely critical of the US-led invasion.

In implied criticism of the military operation, ASEAN foreign ministers after a meeting Wednesday described "surging unilateralism" as one of the world's challenges.

Powell will also be at odds with ASEAN on efforts to establish democracy in military-ruled member Myanmar.

The ministers on Wednesday dropped calls made last year for the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and merely "underlined the need for the involvement of all strata of Myanmar society in the ongoing national convention", which is drafting a constitution.

Powell is to seek more action from ASEAN on promoting democratic reforms in the country, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Lorne Craner, said this week.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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