The regional group and its contacts from Seoul have yet to decide whether to invite Kim to a commemorative summit in Busan, South Korea, in November, following more frequent engagement between North Korea and the United States on denuclearization.

The upcoming summit is being held to celebrate 30 years of the ASEAN-South Korea dialogue partnership that was established in 1989.

Indonesia’s permanent representative to ASEAN, Ade Padmo Sarwono, said the proposal had been tabled by Jokowi after the US-North Korea summit in Singapore last year when the situation was largely positive.

“The idea is still [...] on the table and we are still discussing it, but we will also continue to consider the latest situation and developments so that ASEAN will not take a step in the wrong direction,” he said on the margins of a discussion hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The nuclear summit between US President Donald Trump and Kim earlier this year ended without an agreement. Since then, working-level talks between the two sides have stalled. Trump and Kim met again in June at the border between South and North Korea, agreeing to reopen negotiations that have yet to materialize.

On Friday, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho was quoted by state media KCNA as saying that Pyongyang was ready for both dialogue and confrontation with the US.

Meanwhile, South Korea Ambassador to ASEAN Lim Sung-nam said Seoul was still consulting with ASEAN on the possible arrangements for the commemorative summit. “We will have to carefully look at the situation on the Korean Peninsula — it’s still unfolding,” he said. “Between now and the end of November, we still have more than three months. In diplomacy, that’s a long time.”

Observers have been encouraging ASEAN to play a more active mediation role in the Korean Peninsula issue on account of its convening power and antinuclear weapons interests. The ASEAN Regional Forum is the only regional forum that North Korea participates in.

FPCI founder Dino Patti Djalal said ASEAN was uniquely placed to act due to its geographical proximity, noting that the last two meetings between the US and North Korea took place in Southeast Asia. “It’s probably a good idea for ASEAN to be an interlocutor that can focus on pushing this process forward,” Dino said.

Foreign Ministry acting spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said the “geostrategic” constellation of the Korean Peninsula issue had fundamentally changed. “Now that the objective of [North] Korea to only negotiate with the US has been achieved, the role of any third party will actually not provide any added value,” he said.

Faizasyah said Indonesia was, nevertheless, ready if parties involved wanted it to provide a venue for a third Trump-Kim summit.

However, others were unimpressed by Indonesia’s position.

“A good middle power […] if they are serious about their roles, will not be satisfied by simply saying that [the geostrategic position has changed]; they also create opportunities,” said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an international relations expert from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. “I see this lack of imagination both within the foreign policy structure of Indonesia and ASEAN, using too much of the diplomatic straitjacket and not using enough of intellectual capacity.” (tjs)

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