RI wants solution to row over islands

RI wants solution to row over islands

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas
said Saturday Jakarta wants a political solution to a dispute
over the two islands off Borneo rather than a reference to the
world court as proposed by Malaysia.

Indonesia and Malaysia "are still in the process of finding
out whether a political solution is possible," Alatas was quoted
by Bernama news agency as saying.

The two sides have overlapping sovereignty claims on Sipadan
and Ligitan, two small islands off the coast of Indonesia's East
Kalimantan and Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah.

Years of negotiations between the two countries failed to
yield an accord and the two parties last year agreed to try and
settle it through talks between high level "personal envoys" of
their leaders.

"Only when we know the result of their (envoys') work, will it
then be put back to the two foreign ministers for further
action," said Alatas, who was in Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN-
Mekong Basin Development Cooperation ministerial meeting
scheduled to start Monday.

During talks between the two countries on the islands in
Jakarta in September 1994, Kuala Lumpur wanted to raise the issue
for arbitration with the The Hague-based International Court of
Justice.

Indonesia, on the other hand, asked for a settlement mechanism
organised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
which both countries belong to.