Tue, 27 Jun 1995

Alatas says no to talks on South China Sea border

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas dismissed yesterday an offer from a Chinese official to discuss border delineation in the South China Sea, saying that Indonesia and China did not share any border in the area.

"We welcome the spirit of the Chinese statement as expressed through its spokesman. But Indonesia does not feel that it has a problem about delineation of a sea border with China," Alatas said after meeting with President Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office.

"We don't feel the need to delineate a sea border because we do not share a border with China," he said.

He was commenting on a report from Beijing last week according to which a Chinese foreign affairs spokesman, Chen Jian, stressed that China did not have any claim on Indonesia's Natuna Islands in the South China Sea. Chen was quoted as saying, however, that China was willing to hold talks with Indonesia in order to settle demarcation in the area.

Last year, Indonesia sent a diplomatic note immediately after it found that an official Chinese map located Natuna on the Chinese side of the "broken lines", leaving the impression that the islands fell within Beijing's territory.

Alatas said yesterday that Indonesia had not received any official response from Beijing to its note querying the meaning of the broken lines. "Let's have that answer first," he said in relation to the Chinese offer of border talks.

The minister said that, as far as Indonesia was concerned, the Chinese frontier ended well to the north of Indonesia's territory.

Indonesia had, he added, settled its borders to the east and west of Natuna with Malaysia, and was currently negotiating to settle a demarcation line with Vietnam.

The area around the Natunas, regarded Indonesia's northern frontier, is rich in gas reserves and a $40 billion extraction project is currently underway.

Alatas reported to President Soeharto yesterday on a series of overseas trips he is planning to make soon.

The foreign minister leaves for Cambodia today for his first trip to that country since it held its first post-civil war general elections two years ago. He will be there until June 29.

Indonesia played a crucial role in the long negotiations that led to the end of the war in Cambodia in 1991.

Alatas said he would travel to Geneva on July 8 for a sixth round of meetings with his Portuguese counterpart and United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali regarding the status of East Timor.

The results of the recent dialog in Austria between East Timorese leaders on both sides of the conflict would also be reviewed in Geneva, he said. (emb)