Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said Japan would press for the ASEM meeting to issue a joint statement condemning the nuclear test, apart from the conference's normal closing statement.
VOA: standard.2009.05.25
Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-appointed president, and Atal Behari Vajpayee, India's prime minister, could not agree on any form of jointstatement, or even to hold a press conference explaining what had gone wrong.
In fact, Gorbachev went to great lengths in the press conference to distance himself from the implication that the jointstatement represented a priori Soviet acquiescence to any military options if the sanctions do not work.