Southeast Asian foreign ministers vowed to finalize negotiations with China over a proposed pact aimed at preventing conflicts in the disputed South China Sea in their annual retreat on Saturday in Indonesia’s capital.
In the final session of their two-day meeting, the ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also agreed to unite in their approach to implement a five-step agreement made in 2021 between ASEAN leaders and Myanmar’s military leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, that seeks to end that country’s worsening crisis.
Sidharto Suryodipuro, head of ASEAN Cooperation at Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Jakarta that ASEAN member states will push negotiations this year and explore new approaches. Vietnam, one of the four ASEAN claimant states, has been vocal in expressing concerns over China’s transformation of seven disputed reefs into man-made islands, including three with runways, which now resemble small cities armed with weapons systems.
The edge of the exclusive economic zone overlaps with Beijing’s unilaterally declared “nine-dash line” demarking its claims in the South China Sea. Myanmar is also an ASEAN member, but its foreign minister was excluded from Friday’s annual ministers’ retreat because of his country’s failure to implement the five-step consensus.
Myanmar’s military leader promised in the five-point agreement to allow a special ASEAN envoy to meet with jailed ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others to foster a dialogue aimed at easing the crisis, set off by the military’s seizure of power two years ago.
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