Southeast Asian leaders will call for peaceful resolutions of conflicts. Trump will join final talks.

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The three-day summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their Asian and Western counterparts starts Sunday.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Some of the world’s most intractable conflicts will be high on the agenda when Southeast Asian leaders gather in the Philippine capital for annual summit meetings this weekend. U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to join them for the final talks.

The three-day summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their Asian and Western counterparts starts Sunday in a heavily guarded convention center in Manila Bay.

According to drafts of prepared post-summit communiques seen by The Associated Press, no breakthroughs are expected in the discussions that will focus on calling for the peaceful resolution of the South China Sea disputes, the civil strife in Myanmar and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

This year, the Philippines holds the rotating leadership of ASEAN, a conservative regional bloc of 11 democratic and authoritarian states, including police states. The bloc has managed to keep together such a diverse grouping since its founding in 1967 largely because of its bedrock policy of non-interference in the members’ domestic affairs.

In Manila, key rivals will again be face-to-face but no shake-ups are anticipated. ASEAN is known more for its photo-ops that project unity, cultural pomp and pageantry than for effectively dealing with the region’s conflicts, including the civil war in Myanmar.

Trump will land in Manila with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday afternoon, after the main ASEAN summit meetings have concluded and the Philippines has turned over the regional bloc’s annual leadership to Singapore.

He will, however, be joining three key meetings on Tuesday night, including a special summit with ASEAN leaders over cocktails and a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue consisting of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, according to Philippine officials.

China will be represented by its premier, Li Qiang, who will meet ASEAN leaders on Monday, but will leave before Trump arrives, the officials…

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