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ndonesia and Malaysia are to discuss their overlapping borders during the visit of Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah on Monday, a Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday.

The ministry’s Southeast Asia director Denny Abdi said border issues remained one of Indonesia’s priorities in dealing with Malaysia, in addition to migrant workers and the education of their children.

“Rest assured that the border issue is not something hindering the good relations between Indonesia and Malaysia. However, we have to look at the settlement process from times to times,” Denny said during a weekly briefing.

He said that since Monday’s meeting would just be the first, a wide variety of issues would be raised. “Because we are practically very close there’s no issue too sensitive to be raised,” he said.

In their first meeting in June, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad proposed a joint development arrangement in the overlapping border areas to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

“We cannot resolve the issue alone,” Mahathir said. “We need to accept that Indonesia and Malaysia must cooperate, similar to how Malaysia cooperates with Thailand, where we have a joint development area.”

However, Denny said further details would require meetings on technical levels to translate the leaders’ instructions without contradicting the legal aspects of border negotiations.

Separately, Eddy Pratomo, the presidential special envoy for maritime delimitation between Indonesia and Malaysia, said Malaysia’s proposal for a joint development area needed more study.

He said Indonesia was looking forward to the talks with Malaysia on maritime boundaries to reach an amicable solution.

So far, Eddy said, Indonesia and Malaysia had made progress through the special envoy mechanism proposed by Malaysia in 2014, having met his counterpart seven times formally and five times informally.

“The negotiations between the two countries have achieved significant progress. The special envoy mechanism has contributed positively to narrowing the gap between the two countries’ positions, particularly in the territorial sea segment in the Sulawesi Sea.”

Indonesia and Malaysia have maritime and land border issues that include overlapping claims over Ambalat waters, a maritime area located off the coast of East Kalimantan, the eastern and western parts of the Strait of Singapore and Tanjung Datu in West Kalimantan.

As joint development areas could take different shapes and forms, Eddy said Indonesia would study the costs and benefits of the proposal first, as well as Malaysia’s arrangements with Thailand and with Brunei Darussalam.

In 1979, the Malaysian and Thai governments agreed on a joint authority for the exploration and exploitation of the resources of the seabed in a defined area of overlapping claims on the continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand for a period of 50 years.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it is possible to have provisional arrangements if negotiations get deadlocked.

Meanwhile, international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana said with both countries so firm on upholding their sovereignty, a joint development area could be a solution.

“I’d say why not? […] If the dispute is on hold, the legal process would still be there but the natural resources could be utilized together,” he said, adding that Indonesia had a similar arrangement with Australia under the Timor Gap treaty.

He said so far the negotiations between Malaysia and Indonesia had been difficult.

“Each of the peoples do not want to compromise on even one inch, especially Indonesians who still remember what happened with the Sipadan and Ligitan islands,” he said.