“The ministers who will be present at the meeting in Boracay, Philippines, on Feb. 19 to 21 will also bring about a set of issues from their countries and we could cooperate together to solve these issues and develop stronger ties within ASEAN,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told a weekly briefing on Thursday.

President Rodrigo Duterte, who officially became ASEAN chairman at a ceremony in Davao on Jan. 15, stressed that the Philippines would hold fast to ideologies and values that the grouping was pursuing as well as persist in cooperation in order to realize common aspirations.

Duterte affirmed that ASEAN would achieve its goals via policies and guidelines, cooperation, coordination and consensus.

Meanwhile, Arrmanatha said Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi would visit Singapore on Feb. 9 to 10 for bilateral meetings in conjunction with 50 years of diplomatic relations.

Retno will meet Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to focus on maritime cooperation and security relations, areas of concern raised during Lee’s visit to Semarang, Central Java, for the Leaders’ Retreat in November 2016.

“We will also focus on terrorism and ways both countries can cooperate in terms of intelligence and information sharing to combat the possible rise of terrorism in our region,” Arrmanatha said.

“The issue of border protection will also be discussed as both countries had signed a sea border treaty, which was ratified by the Indonesian government last year, for the eastern part of the Singapore Strait in 2014. We still have border limitation issues, which will be identified in the meeting.”

(Read also: ASEAN secrets Trump should know)

During her visit, Retno will also give a public lecture at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies regarding Indonesia’s foreign policy under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Before visiting Singapore, Retno is scheduled to visit South Africa and Mozambique on Feb. 6 to 8.

The Foreign Minister’s newly appointed director of African affairs, Daniel Tumpal Sumurung Simajuntak, said that Africa was one of the main priorities for Indonesia in 2017 in terms of bilateral relationship reinforcement.

“This will be her first bilateral visit this year and Africa will be our main focus as we will try to work on developing stronger economic ties,” said Daniel.

“Retno will also be delivering the Indian Ocean Rim Association [IORA] summit invitation from President Jokowi to the prime ministers of both countries, as [the IORA summit] will be held next month in Jakarta.”

In light of the issue of a detained Indonesian police unit in Sudan, Arrmanatha said there was no concrete proof that showed that luggage found containing a large number of weapons and ammunition belonged to the Indonesian Formed Police Unit (FPU) VII.

“A joint investigation between the National Police and the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur [UNAMID] was still ongoing and we will try our best to bring them back as soon as possible,” he said.

“UNAMID has told us that our team was one of the best in Darfur and they truly appreciated our help and support in the peacekeeping mission in Sudan.”

The North Darfur administration have detained an Indonesian police unit that was in the process of returning home after serving in Darfur for one year as part of UNAMID.

The officers were prevented from leaving the country when El-Fasher Airport security seized a large number of weapons and ammunition “found” in luggage alleged to have belonged to the Indonesian FPU, which the unit denied.

— The writer is an intern for The Jakarta Post.

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