BUSAN, South Korea, Nov. 18 Kyodo

U.S. President George W. Bush and leaders of key Southeast Asian nations agreed in a meeting Friday to press the Myanmar military government to move forward with democratic process, a senior U.S. administration official said.

''There was an expression by a number of members in the meeting of the importance that Burma move forward on the road map for democracy and they need progress on that,'' White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.

Hadley said the leaders of key countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations suggested that they make it an issue in their dialogue with Myanmar.

Bush and the key ASEAN leaders met on the sidelines of the two-day annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that just begun.

On Thursday prior to the meeting, the United States and ASEAN issued a joint statement launching an enhanced partnership to deal with security, economic and social issues comprehensively.

The partnership aimed at promoting strategic dialogue between the United States and Southeast Asian nations comes at a time when the China-led East Asian summit, which excludes Washington, is being launched next month.

The initiative covers 17 areas of cooperation in the three fields of political and security, economic, and social and development matters.

The areas include seeking a trade and investment accord, combating pirates, arms proliferation and terrorism, promoting clean energy, attaining sustainable development, fighting against bird flu, AIDs and other infectious disease.

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