By Raju Gopalakrishnan

MANILA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - For the first time since it was set up 14 years ago, Asia's largest security grouping has given itself a mechanism to intercede in regional crises, but analysts question whether it will be used.

The move is, however, seen as part of a gradual evolution of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum from a talking shop to becoming a group more like the European Union, they said.

"When you compare with the EU, it took them decades to develop the kind of mechanisms that they have today," said Christopher Collier, a lecturer in Asian studies at the Australian National University.

"We are seeing quite unprecedented developments. Although they are modest when compared with what the EU has achieved, it does represent a new level of evolution in ASEAN's development."

The one-day meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, in Manila on Thursday approved setting up a troika of nations that will assist the chair nation to quickly intervene in issues that affect regional stability.

ARF, established in 1993, brings together the 10 Southeast Asian members of ASEAN with 17 partners that include most other Asian nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union.

"It's the first mechanism to support ARF's plan to do some preventive diplomacy," said M. C. Abad, a senior ASEAN official, of the troika, called Friends of the Chair.

He said the need for such an instrument was first felt when fighting erupted in East Timor in the late 1990s after it voted to secede from Indonesia. "ARF found it was in a difficult situation because there was no mechanism for quick reaction."

"This is definitely one of the most important developments in the evolution of ARF," Abad said.

TALKING SHOP

Malcolm Cook, programme director for Asia-Pacific at the Lowy Institute, however, said the crises likely to erupt in Asia would either involve major powers, in which ARF would not be required, or be internal to a particular country, where ARF would not be welcome.

"I suppose where the Friends of the Chair might help is to have regional responses to issues like another tsunami or a major earthquake in the Philippines, where there's not those issues of sovereignty," he said.

"At the moment, in politically sensitive issues, you would probably say it's still a talking shop and ASEAN or ARF hasn't shown the ability to get members to change policies that they are not unilaterally willing to change."

At meetings earlier in the week, ASEAN nations agreed to adopt a landmark charter that would include a provision to set up a regional human rights body, overcoming the objections of Myanmar, considered the black sheep of the group.

It was a departure from the group's consensus-based diplomacy, and forms part of its overall willingness to change, analysts said.

"The question will be, will these new things, the ASEAN charter and the human rights body, whether these small steps will be able to give the institution some teeth," said Cook. "I must say I wouldn't be holding my breath."

Collier, the Australian University lecturer, said the changes held out promise.

"Essentially, the debate is over whether you constructively engage or whether you use much more hard-nosed and stereotypically Western approaches to diplomacy," he said.

"I think ASEAN has been rightly criticised over the last decade in particular for its inability to step up to the plate. That criticism has really been felt and ASEAN is trying to respond now.

"I think it's important to keep our expectations realistic but at the same time give credit where credit is due."

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