Senggigi, West Nusa Tenggara. Legislators from across Southeast Asia
meeting in Lombok have agreed not to go into detail on the South China Sea
disputes, after the issue prompted heated debate earlier at the meeting.
Marzuki Alie, president of the
Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) and the speaker of Indonesia’s House
of Representatives, said at the close of the group’s 33rd general assembly on
Friday that the agreement was reached in order not to escalate tensions on the
issue.
“This decision has been approved
by all parliamentarians from AIPA countries, in light of the dynamics that we
witnessed earlier when the issue was discussed more specifically,” he said.
He added that tensions had run
high during the meeting earlier in the day, but that the participants had
recognized the sensitivity of the issue and agreed for the sake of regional
unity to leave it up to their respective governments to address in greater
detail.
“The role of the parliaments will
simply be to push for resolutions to the various disputes and not to bring them
up at the AIPA forum,” Marzuki said.
“There’s a concern that if we
discuss the issue in too much detail, the negative effects will outweigh any
positive outcome.”
The delegations from Cambodia and
Myanmar had earlier pushed against discussing the territorial spats in depth,
on the grounds that most of them did not involve Asean countries.
The AIPA conference’s resolution
on the issue was to support a solution with the wider view of regional
stability and security in mind, Marzuki said.
Another issue that was expected
to be high on the agenda at the conference was the plight of the ethnic
Rohingya community in Myanmar. However, the matter was not raised or included
in the conference’s list of resolutions.
Marzuki said the issue was not
brought up because earlier an meeting of the AIPA fact-finding committee had
concluded that it should not be brought before the conference as a special
topic.
Rio Budi Santoso, the deputy head
of the Indonesian delegation, said the fact that Marzuki had even mentioned the
issue in his speech was sufficient for it to be considered already discussed.
“We’ve already gone over it, even
though it wasn’t a specific topic in our agenda,” he said.
Marzuki played down criticism
that the delegates did not consider the problems facing the Rohingya an
important subject, saying that the Myanmar delegation’s mention of the issue
and the ongoing communication between the Indonesian and Myanmar legislatures
showed that it was getting the recognition it needed from countries in the
region.
A subject that did feature high
on the agenda was regional economics, including the impact of the global
economic crisis on Southeast Asia and the need for increased cooperation to
tackle transnational financial crimes such as money laundering.
The AIPA delegates also supported
the concept of building a “green” economy to achieve sustainable economic
growth while improving stewardship of the region’s environmental resources.
They also called for increased cooperation on low-carbon and environmentally
friendly technology, as well as energy diversification to reduce dependence on
fossil fuels.
The next AIPA general assembly
will be held in Brunei.
Fitri
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