ASEAN firstly fails to issue its joint statement in history
Chhay Sophal
Cambodia News
Phnom Penh (13 July, 2012): The 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday failed for the first time to reach a consensus for releasing their joint communiqué after the 8-day meetings of the 45th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Cambodia since 6 July.
Speaking in a press conference, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said he was much regretful that the ASEAN meetings this time could not issue its joint communiqué due to the only one point — the dispute in the South China Sea.
He said that some member states of ASEAN had taken the ASEAN joint communiqué to be a hostage for their bilateral disputes between China. Cambodia takes its strong position that it does not allow any country to take Cambodia or ASEAN meetings in Phnom Penh to be a hostage for the ASEAN joint communiqué because “Cambodia or ASEAN is not a tribunal”.
He said that the countries concerned, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, must deal directly with China because the South China Sea dispute is not the ASEAN issue, but the bilateral dispute between China and some countries in ASEAN. However, he said, Cambodia has tried its best to help coordinate the ASEAN member states since 2002 to draft DOC and COC for the South China Sea disputes.
The 10 nations of ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The countries having territorial disputes with China are Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, including Taiwan — the non-ASEAN member.
Hor Namhohong said that the unreleased joint communiqué is not the failure of Cambodia or ASEAN, but there is not a consensus on the point of the South China Sea. Although the communiqué cannot be issued at this time meetings, he does believe that ASEAN still move forwards because “as one ASEAN one community”, there are a lot of works for ASEAN to do.
Before the press conference, the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines released a press statement saying that the Philippines takes strong exception that “the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is “the first time that ASEAN is not able to issue the joint communiqué due to bilateral conflict between some ASEAN Member States and a neighboring country”.
“…this dispute is not a mere bilateral conflict with a northern neighbor but a multilateral one and should therefore be resolved in a multilateral manner,” the statement reads.
Earlier this week, while being in the 45th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also urged all parties concerned with the South China Sea disputes to reach a peaceful solution and with approving the Code of Conduct.
