Hello and welcome to the details of Indonesia poised to ratify South China Sea boundary deal with Vietnam, lawmaker says and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Indonesian Parliament building stands with the skyline in the background in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 25, 2025. — Reuters pic
JAKARTA, May 1 — Indonesia’s parliament is set to agree next week to ratify an agreement made with Vietnam that sets the boundaries of their exclusive economic zones in the contested South China Sea, a lawmaker said on Thursday.
The South China Sea is a strategic waterway that has been a source of tension between China and its South-east Asian neighbours, disrupting fishing and energy exploration in the area.
Nico Siahaan, a lawmaker in the parliamentary commission overseeing the agreement, told Reuters the parliament and the government would formally agree to ratify it on Monday, with the actual ratification set for that week or the following week.
The agreement, signed in 2022 after more than a decade of negotiations, determines the coordinates of the two nations’ EEZs at sea. The Vietnamese parliament also needs to ratify the deal.
Indonesia hopes it could reduce encroachments by Vietnamese fishermen in its waters, a frequent source of tension.
Hikmahanto Juwana, an Indonesian international law expert who was consulted by the parliament last week, told Reuters on Thursday the agreement means the two countries are ignoring China’s claims in the sea.
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam, and waters off Indonesia’s Natuna Islands.
In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal ruled that China’s claims have no basis under international law. China does not recognise the ruling, and insists it operates lawfully in its territory.
Indonesia’s deputy foreign minister, Arif Havas Oegroseno, told Reuters on Wednesday that the agreement would provide legal boundaries for fishermen and clearly define relations between the two countries at sea.
“To Indonesia, as an archipelago with a lot of neighbours, ideally sea borders are done. So we have a legal certainty: where we can make patrols, drill oil,” he said.
Indonesia’s signing of a maritime deal with China last year sparked controversy, with analysts saying it could be interpreted as a change in Jakarta’s long-held stance as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry has repeatedly said the country is a non-claimant state in the South China Sea and has no overlapping jurisdiction with China. — Reuters
These were the details of the news Indonesia poised to ratify South China Sea boundary deal with Vietnam, lawmaker says for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
