ASEAN Secretary General urges member states to seek peaceful solution for hot issue
Chhay Sophal
Cambodia News
Phnom Penh: The Secretary General of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Surin Pitsuwan on Saturday urged all ASEAN leaders to find peaceful solution for any hot issue raised in the summit.
Speaking in a press briefing at the 21st ASEAN Summit, Mr Surin said he never knows if the hot topic of South China is raised in summit finally held in Cambodia.
“South China Sea, I don’t know,” Mr Surin replied to a journalist’s question on the issue of sea conflict among a few ASEAN member states.
However, Mr. Surin said it is open free for any issue to be raised by state members for discussion during the summit but all state members have to find peaceful solution and ASEAN wants to build the “culture of norm” and the “culture of habit” to work together with no confrontation.
In July, ASEAN failed for the first time to reach a consensus for releasing their joint communiqué after the 8-day meetings of the 20th ASEAN Summit 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 and that 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”.
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.
