Indonesia, Malaysia meet to discuss Sipadan-Ligitan

Indonesia, Malaysia meet to discuss Sipadan-Ligitan

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian and Malaysian senior officials will
meet today to resolve details before jointly submitting the
Sipadan-Ligitan dispute to the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands.

In the two-day meeting at the Grand Preanger Hotel, Bandung,
the Indonesian team will be headed by the foreign ministry's
Director General for Political Affairs Izhar Ibrahim.

The Malaysian side will be led by its foreign ministry's
secretary-general Abdul Kadir. The two teams met in Kuala Lumpur
in January.

"This is a consultative meeting to prepare the draft of a
Special Agreement on the issue to be signed by the two foreign
ministers before submitting it to the ICJ," Izhar told The
Jakarta Post Saturday.

Izhar said the two sides would exchange views on their
respective position.

He declined to say whether the two teams would be able to
complete their task in today's meeting.

After failing to reach a bilateral agreement, Indonesia's
President Soeharto and Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohammad agreed in October last year to take their claims to the
ICJ.

The two leaders pledged to abide by the court's decision.

The two tiny islands are off the north east coast of
Kalimantan.

The dispute is a legacy of the two country's former colonial
rulers, the Dutch in Indonesia and the British in Malaysia.

Among the complex legal issues which need to be worked out is
whether the ICJ should only make an interpretation of the
British-Dutch agreement in 1891, one of the primary sources of
the overlapping claims.

It also needs to work out if the ICJ's decision should
determine the maritime borders around the two islands.

The two countries agreed that until an acceptable solution was
reached, no party was allowed to develop the islands.

But Jakarta was irritated when Kuala Lumpur promoted Sipadan
as one of its paradise tourist spots during the Berlin Tourism
Bourse in March. (06)