Yasay: ASEAN opted for 'middle ground' on sea dispute | Global News

Yasay: ASEAN opted for ‘middle ground’ on sea dispute

/ 02:34 PM July 27, 2016

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, center, and Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., pose for a photo during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – China Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Monday, July 25, 2016.  A highly anticipated meeting between Southeast Asian foreign ministers and their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi has begun in what is expected to be tense discussions on China's territorial expansion in the South China Sea.  (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, center, and Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., pose for a photo during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – China Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Monday, July 25, 2016. AP

MANILA—Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said he pushed for mention and inclusion of the landmark arbitral tribunal decision in the joint communiqué of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Foreign Ministers meet held in Vientienne, but members already facing deepening row on sea disputes agreed on a middle ground that deleted portion on the arbitral decision that scrapped China’s nine dash claim.

He said at the start of the Asean Foreign Ministers meet, there was no mention of the arbitral tribunal’s decision rendered on July 12 but the Philippines “had to take the diplomatic tact”  of pushing for the inclusion of the arbitration court’s decision.

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“Vigorously,  I pushed for the inclusion and mentioning of the arbitral award, it’s a diplomatic track that that we had to take,” said Yasay at a press briefing of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday.

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The Asean members, four of them — Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia — are claimants to waters of South China Sea.  However, they agreed to adopt a joint statement without mention of the arbitral decision.

Yasay stressed that the Philippines respected and would continue to respect positions taken by Asean members.

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“They have not taken any stand or side or partiality (on sea disputes). We will respect it,” he said, adding that “the actual resolution of disputes in the South China Sea is a matter for China and the Philippines to resolve.”  SFM

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TAGS: ASEAN, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, bilateral negotiation, China, Department of Foreign Affairs, DFA, Diplomacy, Features, Foreign affairs, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, geopolitics, Global Nation, International Court, International Law, International relations, International Trade, John Kerry, Maritime Defense, maritime security, nation, National Defense, national security, Perfecto Yasay, Permanent Court of Arbitration, Philippine government, Philippine president, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte, Security, South China Sea, sovereignty, Spratly Islands, territorial disputes, Territories, The Hague, trade, trade relations, UN, UN-backed arbitration, United Nations, United States, US, US Secretary of State John Kerry, West Philippine Sea

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