Obama, ASEAN leaders to discuss Pyongyang in next week's summit

North Korea's nuclear and missile tests are expected to be a topic at U.S. President Barack Obama's upcoming summit with leaders of Southeast Asian nations, White House officials said.

Obama is scheduled to host the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in a summit set for Monday and Tuesday at the Sunnylands resort in Southern California. The summit is part of efforts to further bolster U.S. relations with Asian countries under Obama's trademark "rebalance" or "pivot" to Asia policy.

"I would anticipate, given the importance of this issue, it will also be addressed at Sunnylands," Daniel Kritenbrink, senior Asian affairs director at the National Security Council, said at a briefing Tuesday to preview next week's summit.

The official also said that the U.S. has made its position very clear that it condemns the North's provocations, will take steps to demonstrate consequences to the North and remains firmly committed to the security of allies South Korea and Japan.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, also said during the briefing that the U.S. has worked with some ASEAN nations over many years to address a range of security challenges related to North Korea, including counter-proliferation efforts to ensure that North Korea is not able to export material that could serve a proliferation purpose.

"We've had good cooperation on that," he said. "Some of these countries have reduced their relations with North Korea, their military-to-military cooperation. So I think we've had some good progress with ASEAN countries on that set of issues." (Yonhap)