Press brawl with Singapore police at ASEAN meeting

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Journalists covering meetings of Asia-Pacific nations scuffled with Singapore police on Wednesday, highlighting tight security measures in a luxury hotel where high-level talks are being held.

The melee between journalists and police started when North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun showed up to attend an informal meeting between foreign ministers on the reclusive state's nuclear disarmament program.

A Japanese TV cameraman covering the event was wrestled to the floor while a soundman for Japan's NHK television had his media pass revoked when security officials thought he had hit a policeman.

The week-long meetings held at the Shangri-La Hotel have turned into a media circus with swarms of journalists leaping to action whenever a foreign minister appears.

Foreign ministers from Southeast Asia, China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia, India, Australia and New Zealand are among those attending the talks on security, trade and economic issues.

Singapore, which keeps a tight grip on its own national media, is unaccustomed to the media scrums common at these events.

The ASEAN organizing committee issued a stern rebuke on Wednesday to journalists, complaining that delegations "have been swarmed by the media" in the lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel. "In one instance, a senior member of a visiting delegation was accidentally hit with a video camera by a photojournalist, while in another, a child was almost trampled on by a group of media personnel chasing some delegates into a lift," it said.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was decidedly testy when confronted by a video camera on Wednesday.

"I thought Singaporeans are very polite people," Lavrov said. "Please turn off your camera, you irritate me".

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Bill Tarrant)