BANGKOK. Dec 11: Vietnam's communist rulers arrived in Thailand Sunday to prepare for their first summit with South-East Asian neighbours that treated them as outcasts for decades, reports AP.

Starting Monday, foreign ministers from members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations meet to discuss how to run the region in the post-Cold War era.

Their agenda includes a nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty the United States and other nuclear powers refuse to recognize.

It wasn't until July that Vietnam could join ASEAN, which also includes Thailand, Indonesia. Malaysia, the Philippines. Singapore and Brunei. ASEAN backed the US war against the Communist Insurgences of Indo China, then led world opposition to Vietnam's 11-year military occupation of Cambodia.

Asked if Vietnam's status as ASEAN's sole Communist member posed difficulties, he said: "The principle problem in ASEAN is how to have _closer cooperation for eco-. nomic development. It is our -common target."