TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia, Philippines forge cooperation to secure Sulu Sea
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi speaks during a hearing at the House of Representatives in Jakarta. (Antara/-)
I
ndonesia and the Philippines have agreed to work toward realizing concrete steps to secure the increasingly dangerous waters of the Sulu Sea through the establishment of a sea lane corridor, a minister has said.
"Indonesia is ready to cooperate with the Philippines across various areas related to the issue, including defense, security and development cooperation," Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said in a statement released on Friday.
Retno met with her Philippine counterpart Perfecto Yasay in Manila on Friday to discuss efforts to ensure the safety of vessels traveling across the southern Philippine waters, the scene of multiple instances of piracy and hijacking recently.
The meeting, which came one day after the inauguration of the new administration under President Rodrigo Duterte, also aimed to intensify coordination between both governments to release seven Indonesian crewmen taken hostage by armed Philippine militants in Sulu waters.
Retno said concrete maritime cooperation between Indonesia and the Philippines would be carried out in accordance to existing agreements between the two countries, such as the 1975 Border Patrol Agreement, the Yogyakarta trilateral declaration on maritime security on May 5, which also involves Malaysia, and defense force agreements from the bilateral meeting between the two countries' defense ministers on June 26.
