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)