Alatas opens workshop on South China Sea

BUKITTINGGI, West Sumatra (JP): The fifth workshop on managing potential conflicts in the South China Sea opened here yesterday with Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas expressing hope of involving government institutions and non-South China Sea parties in various cooperation projects.

"The aim here is not to formalize this workshop, which will remain informal," he said.

The minister told newsmen if an agreement on the environment, for example, is reached later on, it would be an appropriate time to involve high ranking government officials -- or ministers -- of participating countries.

Speaking after the opening of the annual workshop, Alatas said the participation of non-South China Sea countries could also be considered, especially in the projects which involved them.

He pointed out that a navigational safety project for the region, for instance, could now consider involving Japan which frequently uses the South China Sea for its shipping routes.

"If we fail to include them, this means our projects will have no regard for a party which is involved in navigational safety," he said.

The decades-long dispute over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, believed to contain huge amounts of oil deposits, and which function as a busy thoroughfare for international shipping lines, lingers still as six parties -- the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan and the People's Republic of China -- have filed claims over all or part of them.

Vietnam and China are also locked in a dispute over the Paracel Islands, some 600 km north of the Spratlys.

Alatas' call yesterday follows a proposal he made at last year's workshop in Surabaya, when he suggested formalizing, or involving government officials, in the meeting, and including other non-South China Sea countries, such as Japan, Australia, the United States and the European Union in the implementation of joint projects.

Since 1990, Indonesia has been hosting annual informal workshops on the South China Sea.

Regional stability

Workshop participants, who are in this mountainous town on an individual basis, consist of experts from the six claimant countries and Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia which have no interest in the Spratlys, but have a stake in ensuring regional stability.

Also present at the meeting are resource persons from Canada and one from Cambodia, who is participating for the first time.

In his opening speech, Alatas acknowledged the recommendations and proposals made by technical working groups as valuable input for future implementation of the projects agreed on in Surabaya.

Working groups established in the third workshop in Yogyakarta in 1992 consist of a team studying resource assessment and ways of development, which proposed several recommendations in Surabaya, and one studying marine scientific research, which has met three times and is expected to make its recommendation here.

A group on the protection of the marine environment has met once in Huangzhou, China, and is also expected to present its results here.

A fourth group recommended by the Surabaya workshop on the safety of navigational shipping and communications has not yet convened due to difficulties in selecting a venue, while a fifth group on legal matters has not yet been formed.

Other major issues determined in Surabaya, which have not been discussed, are cooperation to overcome the problem of refugees, search and rescue at sea, piracy and drug trafficking.

"I hope that at this meeting we can achieve further progress on these major concerns," Alatas said.

He insisted that the issue of the claims would not be neglected in this workshop.

"We admit the claims will still be there and we agree that it is up to the countries in dispute whether they intend to resolve them on a bilateral basis or otherwise. But while we wait for the claims to be resolved, why don't we cooperate in beneficial, less controversial fields," he said. (pwn)