As Clinton Talks Up Trade at Asia-Pacific Summit, E. Timor Casts Shadow

President Clinton vigorously touted trade and tranquillity in Asia on Sunday, urging business executives and the many world leaders gathered here to do their part to promote both.

As Clinton praised the benefits of free trade and explored ways to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait, however, the crisis in East Timor loomed over the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Among those with whom Clinton conferred about the crisis was Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a leading advocate of multinational intervention to end the bloodshed in the territory.

The private conversation--a “pull-aside,” as White House spokesman Joe Lockhart called it--occurred during the opening session of the APEC summit, which has brought together most of the leaders of the 21 regional economies that make up the organization.

During a 20-minute tete-a-tete, Lockhart said, Clinton and Howard continued ongoing conversations between Australia and the United States about a “supporting role” that American troops would play if a U.N. peacekeeping force was dispatched to East Timor.

Clinton also met jointly Sunday with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

In addition to discussing East Timor, they reviewed the three nations’ common efforts to dissuade North Korea from test-firing a new missile by offering economic incentives, according to White House officials.

“The president indicated that if the North Koreans are prepared to forswear their missile-testing program, we should be prepared to take some positive steps. And of course the reverse is true as well,” said Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, the president’s national security advisor.

Although today’s agenda calls for the gathered leaders to focus on commerce, the situation in East Timor is all but certain to intrude again, Lockhart said.

“The discussion [on trade] would most likely turn to East Timor and the situation in Indonesia during lunch, which is traditionally a more freewheeling session,” he said.

“What the president is doing in these conversations is seeking to gain from the other leaders their active engagement with the Indonesians--particularly those like Japan that have strong relations--to urge the Indonesians to change course,” Berger added.

He said Obuchi indicated to Clinton that the Japanese would “intensify their efforts” to encourage the Indonesians to end the violence in East Timor.

Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky met for about 90 minutes Sunday with China’s trade minister to discuss terms of Beijing’s entry into the World Trade Organization--only a day after Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin agreed to resume those talks.

Lockhart declined to go into the specifics of the discussions other than to say that negotiations continued among their subordinates even after Barshefsky and China’s chief negotiator had departed.

Clinton also met with Russia’s new prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin. Berger said they discussed an array of bilateral issues, from arms control and nuclear nonproliferation to allegations of rampant corruption and money laundering in Russia.

“The president said he . . . hopes that Russia will deal with this problem because ‘it could eat the heart out of Russian society if the problem of corruption is not dealt with,’ ” according to Berger.

Putin told reporters afterward that no money lent to Russia by the International Monetary Fund or other international lenders passed through accounts at the Bank of New York, which allegedly was used to launder money from Russia.

A team of Russian investigators is scheduled to arrive in the U.S. today to help in the probe of whether any of the billions of dollars transferred from Russia was money from criminal sources.

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OPENNESS URGED

Clinton warned leaders to address the needs of average people or risk trade breakdown. C1