Of the serial summits, an important highlight will be the staging of the inaugural East Asia Summit on Wednesday, which gathers not only leaders from ASEAN countries, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, but those from Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zeland and the Republic of Korea.

    To clear its path to joining the summit, Australia on Saturday inked the Instrument of Accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), for ASEAN had made it a point that to be eligible for the EAS, a country must be a dialogue partner, has signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) and has substantive relations with the organization.

    Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia did not sign the treaty earlier "because we didn't see it as being consistent" with the country's international relations, particularly those with the United States.

    However, he said, "We have negotiated an understanding with ASEAN countries to the extent that we feel that we can sign the treaty without disrupting our relationships with countries beyond the region, in particular the United States."

    Australia's participation in the EAS has met with some criticism. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who originally proposed the East Asian process, had said that the EAS was not a summit of East Asian countries in the true sense due to the presence of Australia and New Zealand, and he feared that the views of Australia, a close ally of the United States, might dominate the summit.

    ASEAN has said in a statement that the EAS will be open and outward-looking, and ASEAN itself should be "in the driver's seat" in the summit, for which China has expressed clear support.

    A Kuala Lumpur Declaration, which is to be signed at the EAS, has also been finalized by the ministers.

    For the three days starting on Monday, Kuala Lumpur will be in the spotlight with the gathering of heads of states and governments of participating countries, most of whom have already arrived. Some 2,200 foreign and domestic journalists have registered for coverage of the series of events, according to the media information center. Enditem