Burma, terrorism, AIDS to top IPU agenda in Philippine meeting

April 1 (AFP) - Burma's continued detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, terrorism and AIDS are to top the agenda in an upcoming meeting of world parliamentarians in the Philippines, officials said Friday.

Some 1,500 legislators from Asia, Europe and the Americas were expected to attend the six-day Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly to begin in Manila Sunday, officials said.

Among the key issues expected to be prominently discussed is Myanmar's continued refusal to heed international calls to free Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kuyi, said Philippine Senate president Franklin Drilon, host of the meeting.

Drilon said parliamentarians from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations would to hold their own discussions about Myanmar on the sidelines of the meeting.

Drilon told reporters any ASEAN-wide consensus on Myanmar would be communicated to the IPU delegates as an "emergency issue."

"We will be discussing this in the ASEAN parliamentary meeting on Sunday," said Drilon, who earlier indicated the Philippines would lead pressure to strip Myanmar of the rotating ASEAN chairmanship in 2006.

IPU secretary general Anders Johnsson said a delegation from Myanmar, including parliamentarians in exile, would testify about the state of human rights in the country.

An IPU committee on human rights would hear the Myanmar delegates' testimonies and make an official report to the plenary later in the week, Johnsson said.

Other issues to be raised in the meeting were terrorism, the AIDS pandemic and cross-border terrorism, said IPU president Sergio Paez Verdugo, a senator from Chile.

"Justice without borders is also one of our priorities," he said.