Foreign Affairs Spokesman Robespierre L. Bolivar said on Tuesday he is expecting Asean countries to come up with a code of conduct (COC) that will also embody community-building efforts in preparation for the Asean summit in November.
“We have the joint communique of the Asean Ministerial Meeting [AMM], the chairman statements of the post ministerial conferences, the Asean Regional Forum [ARF], East Asia Summit [EAS] and the Asean, plus three and the framework to be endorsed on August 6,” he said in an interview.
Beijing and its Southeast Asian neighbors have agreed to a framework for a COC in the South China Sea, a move that could reduce the risk of clashes in one of the world’s busiest waterways.
On the other hand, Bolivar said he expects the foreign ministers to endorse the framework agreement of the COC during the Asean-China meeting.
“We expect that the joint working group will begin discussions on the actual code of conduct as soon as the approval of the framework is finished, hopefully within the first meeting of next year,” he added.
As to the goal of the framework COC, Bolivar said: “For now we are waiting for the approval process to be finished. The ministers are expected to endorse it this week [on] Saturday. They will just issue a statement.”
“The COC will take a bit of a time but the political will is there,” he added.
According to Bolivar, the Minister’s endorsement is significant because it is about cementing the commitment.
“That’s why it is being endorsed by the ministers. There’s a political will if ministers will give their endorsement,” he said.
Along with the framework, rival claimants China and the Philippines will start talks over their competing claims in the sea, according to senior diplomats from both sides.
Among the possible issues to be discussed is the proposed joint development in the mineral-rich South China Sea, also called the West Philippine Sea.
Asked whether the Philippines, as Asean chairman will initiate a meeting among parties to the North Korea talks, Bolivar said he hopes that the parties will be able to have some discussions, “but we cannot really say if that is possible at this point at the sidelines of the ARF.
“We will definitely have to see but the ARF is a platform for discussions and we will take it from there,” he said.
Regarding Pyongyang’s “provocative” actions, Bolivar said he is sure several countries would like to discuss the Korean peninsula issue. Asked about the significance of the AMM and ARF, Bolivar has this to say:
“We want to focus on community-building efforts because we are celebrating 50 years and we want to project another, the next 50 years and we want to take advantage of the presence of our dialogue partners and their commitment to help the Asean in their community building efforts for the next 50 years.”
As to whether the statement on terrorism would be a standalone effort, he said: “Either in the EAS or the ARF…are [both] working on this statement on countering violent extremism if I’m not mistaken. But there are stand-alone statements of declarations that we are working on I’m not sure in which meeting.”
“I’m not sure who initiated [it], but in February this year the Philippines and the European Union …co-chaired the ARF workshop on mainstreaming the countering of violent extremism in traditional and social media. And that’s what we want to bring to FMs this coming weekend, the outcome of that workshop.”
“Hopefully this will standardize and out approach will be more coherent in countering terrorism,” he added.