THE "feel-good" fever infecting the landmark Asian Euro summit yesterday spread to a series of face to face meetings between leaders away from the main stage.
Portugal offered Indonesia a ideal on East Timor that President Suharto said he would think about, the EU and South Korea strode towards each other, Japan and South Korea planned to meet despite their bitter territorial dispute, and there was a thaw in cool relations between Britain and China over Hong Kong.
"There can be no denying that the sheer fact that this summit is happening has already generated benefits," one EU diplomat said.
The mood of optimism, in stark contrast to the EU's own anxious soul searching over its future, began at an open shirt tiger prawn, shark fin and roast beef banquet on Thursday and kept on growing yesterday as the leaders aired their views from armchairs, with no table to divide them or to thump.
"Success is inevitable," the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, was quoted by a French official as telling his colleagues.
"Everybody underlined the historic dimension of this meeting. We are launching the process, the official told reporters after four hours of debate on the opening day of the two day summit.
Problems remained, from touchy human rights issues to how to dismantle a plethora of trade barriers, but buoyancy was the order of the day.
The leaders agreed on another summit in London in two years and one in Seoul four years from now, with economic ministers to meet in Tokyo next year and business leaders getting together ahead of that, officials said.
The Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr Antonio Guterres, sprang a surprise on President Suharto after Thursday's dinner with his proposed deal over East Timor, which Indonesia has ruled since invading it in 1975 on the heels of Portuguese colonial rule.
Mr Guterres said he had suggested at the meeting that Indonesia free the Timorese resistance leader Mr Xanana Gusmao in return for limited diplomatic ties.
The British Prime Minister, Mr John Major and the Chinese Premier, Mr Li Peng appeared to have warmed relations chilled by bickering over the future of Hong Kong, due to be handed back to China next year.
Portugal said yesterday Indonesia had instructed its senior officials to start moving on a proposal by the Prime Minister, Mr Antonio Guterres, to break an impasse over the disputed territory of East Timor.
But, in a separate report, Indonesia said there would be no progress in talks with Portugal unless Lisbon dropped its insistence on self determination for the annexed province.