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ndonesia and Thailand have agreed to discuss the introduction of exclusive economic zones (EEZ) to their maritime borders near the Indian Ocean, after the two governments agreed to double down on the issue last week.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s legal affairs and international treaties director general, Damos Agusman, said a meeting to follow up on the results of Friday’s Joint Commission Meeting between the two governments was being set up in the near future.

Indonesia and Thailand share a maritime border in the northern part of the Malacca Strait and in the Andaman Sea to the northeast of Sumatra, as well as to the west of Thailand’s western coastline.

While both sides have long-standing agreements in place on their maritime continental shelf borders, they have yet to delimit their EEZ line, Damos said.

“We have had initial discussions before, but the Thais did not consider it a priority,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday, adding that Jakarta had actively encouraged Bangkok to begin the talks.

The two nations have four delimitation agreements that serve as the legal basis for their fishing and exploration rights: the 1971 Bilateral Continental Shelf Agreement; the 1971 Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Tripartite Continental Shelf Agreement; the 1975 Bilateral Seabed Boundary Agreement; and the 1978 India-Indonesia-Thailand Tri-Junction and Related Boundaries Agreement.

However, these agreements predate the notion of an EEZ, which was first prescribed in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The EEZ is a sea zone over which an UNCLOS member state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources.

Foreign Minister Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi has said concluding negotiations on the EEZ was very important to provide legal certainty over maritime jurisdiction and prevent unwanted incidents at sea.

“If the border is unclear, then we won’t know where we are because of the overlapping claim, which would cause unnecessary tensions and problems,” she told reporters in Yogyakarta on Friday.

However, acknowledging that border delimitation often took a long time to conclude owing to differing interpretations of UNCLOS, Retno said no specific time frame would be enforced.

“What we should do is maintain the commitment to intensify [talks],” she said, fearing that negotiations might stall over a lack of engagement. “It’s important that we make progress every time we meet.”

Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said Bangkok would look into the proposal, acknowledging the sea zone issue was important for Indonesia.

“We don’t have a border problem — just only Indonesia is reordering the concept of the EEZ,” he said in Yogyakarta.

“Some of the points might be connected to some Indonesian neighbors and Thailand is really up there in terms of latitude, not quite relevant, but again, we will look into all possibilities.” (tjs)