His Majesty also touched on the need for a peaceful solution to the Middle East situation including Iraq.

His Majesty made the titah at a meeting between leaders of the Southeast Asian Apec countries and the US on the sidelines of the 14th Apec Economic Leaders' Meeting, RTB reported.

The meeting took place at the Hanoi International Convention Centre.

On bilateral issues, His Majesty noted with satisfaction the excellent bilateral relation between the two sides in areas such as education and defence.

His Majesty also touched on areas where experts from both sides can work

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At the meeting, His Majesty, other Asean leaders and US President George W Bush exchanged views on international and regional political, security and economic issues of common interest including Apec, WTO, energy security and non-traditional security challenges such as disaster management, infectious diseases, terrorism and transactional crime.

The leaders shared the view that to effectively address those issues would require active coordination and close cooperation among countries through concrete programmes and activities.

The Asean leaders welcomed the announcement that the US would provide countries in the region with practical assistance, especially in information and experience sharing in order to effectively address those challenges.

The leaders were of the view that in recent years significant developments had been recorded in the relations between the countries in the region and the US, at both bilateral and multilateral levels.

In the future, priority would be given to promoting economic and trade cooperation, creating stronger economic linkages and encouraging greater involvement of the private sector and businesses between the two sides.

His Majesty proceeded to a hotel in Hanoi to attend a meeting of the Trans-pacific Strategic Economic Partnerships P4 with the President of Chile, Prime Minister of New Zealand and Prime Minister of Singapore.

During yesterday morning's meeting, the four leaders discussed recent developments on P4 Agreement, informally known as the P4 FTA.

His Majesty and other leaders also welcomed the entry into force of the P4 FTA for all the parties and instructed officials to commence negotiations for the outstanding investment and financial services chapters of the agreement. Noting that P4 FTA was designed to have an open architecture, allowing for the accession of new members, the leaders reiterated their vision of the P4 FTA serving as a building block for trade liberalisation across the Asia Pacific region. The leaders also noted that the P4 FTA could serve as a stepping stone in the effort towards regional economic integration.