US Coordinator for APEC Reports Unity in Shanghai

The U.S. coordinator for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) says the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States have produced a clear sense of unity within the organization as it launches a week of high-level meetings that will culminate in a leaders' meeting October 20-21 in Shanghai.

"Everybody's coming together quite well," Ambassador Lawrence Greenwood said in an October 16 interview with the Associated Press.

"There's a strong sense of shared sacrifice and shared pain that comes with the attack, of course -- in a very real sense, since nationals from 16 out of the 21 APEC economies perished in the attacks," he said.

Leaders are expected to issue a joint statement on terrorism at the close of their talks, and Greenwood reported that members have made clear their desire to play "an important, significant role in the antiterrorist effort."

Asked whether Indonesia and Malaysia will limit their cooperation due to domestic pressures, Greenwood said: "I don't want to speak to their domestic political problems because there are people who know much more about that than I. But certainly what we've seen from the officials who are here has been a strong sense of support."

He also credited China's stewardship of the APEC process with the speedy conclusion of the September 15 senior officials' meeting in Shanghai. "I think one of the reasons for [the fast results] is that the Chinese chair is extremely well organized, very hard-driving and just did [its] homework and made sure that we had resolved most of our issues before we actually got there."

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