Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers who hold their annual talks Tuesday ahead of Friday's ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) also face a battle to control the agenda and prove the group's standing, analysts say.

With 26 member countries, the sprawling ARF includes North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia -- all the actors in stalled six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear arms program.

While ASEAN and ARF officials have mapped out packed agendas for meetings, attention will focus on intense diplomatic efforts to revive the talks after North Korea's incendiary July 5 missile tests.

ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong said the ARF, which is expected to push for an early resumption of the six-party talks, provided a rare platform to make contact with reclusive North Korea.

"The North Koreans are aware that the ARF is the only forum that they have outside the UN where they can engage the interested parties," said Ong.

"So they usually turn up and... try to persuade the other participants of the ARF to understand where they are coming from," he told AFP.

Myanmar's open disregard of calls for democratic reform from both its neighours and the United States will also be a focus, with several fellow ASEAN members now openly criticising the country and labelling it an embarrassment.

Regional nations are fuming after Myanmar's generals, who have made scant progress on a so-called roadmap to democracy, ignored their pleas to free detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and gave shabby treatment to a special ASEAN envoy who visited in March.

Political analyst from the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studes, Rizal Sukma, said ASEAN would try to reprimand Myanmar but would be held back by its long-held principles of non-intervention and consensus decision-making.

"Some foreign ministers will try to have a stronger stand and also language when it comes to Myanmar, but of course we're not sure how other countries are going to respond to that," said Sukma.

"As long as consensus is still the mantra, it will be difficult for even Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore to put a bit more pressure on Myanmar," he said.

Other issues up for discussion at ASEAN's ministerial meeting include humanitarian disasters such as the recent tsunami in Indonesia, and efforts to promote greater regional integration.

The ARF, which since its formation in 1994 has served as Asia's only platform for dialogue on security, is expected to boost cooperation on maritime issues and counter-terrorism measures among other issues.

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will also be attending the ARF for the first time after skipping the meeting last year, a decision which caused consternation in the region.

Besides North Korea, Rice has said anti-terrorism cooperation, democracy in Myanmar and discussions on the Middle East with Malaysia and Indonesia -- ASEAN's Muslim-majority nations -- are on the cards.

Faced with so many issues, analysts say Southeast Asian ministers will have difficulty controlling the agenda and resisting attempts from powers such as the US to hijack ASEAN's concerns and sway the group towards its own security interests.

"What usually happens is that, from an Australian perspective and even from an American perspective, the attempt is to impose an agenda which is basically a military strategic agenda," said Michael McKinley, a political analyst with the Australian National University.

"The danger is that (ASEAN) will be urged, in one way or another, to apply the same type of counter measures that many of the Western countries think are appropriate," he said.

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