Rice heads next week to ASEAN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Singapore next week for a meeting of Southeast Asian countries and will also visit Australia, New Zealand and Samoa, the State Department said on Monday.

Rice is set to attend a meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum on July 23-24 in Singapore, said her spokesman Sean McCormack. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations groups Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. Myanmar, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

After the ASEAN meeting, Rice is set to travel to Perth in western Australia and then Auckland, New Zealand, followed by a brief stopover in the Samoan capital Apia to meet leaders of Pacific islands, McCormack said.

Rice's trip to Asia comes amid movement on the North Korea nuclear dossier and there has been speculation foreign ministers from the six nations dealing with that issue might meet at the time of the ASEAN meeting, most likely in Beijing.

But McCormack said ministers from the six party talks -- which bring together the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States -- had not yet agreed on a time for such a meeting and he had nothing to announce.

Over the weekend, North Korea pledged to complete steps to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of October during the six-nation talks aimed at disarming the communist state in exchange for aid and better diplomatic relations.

Envoys from the six countries are expected to continue informal discussions at the ASEAN forum next week.

(Reporting by Sue Pleming, Editing by Anthony Boadle)