By Luke Hunt
Indonesia is upping the diplomatic ante: by putting the Code of Conduct for dispute resolution in the South China Seas back on the agenda at the United Nations in New York, the country’s leaders have raised the pressure on their regional neighbors while hoping to head off any further embarrassment at the next meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
ASEAN foreign ministers failed to reach consensus at a meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh in June about the appropriate way to peacefully resolve disputes between its members over the Spratly and Paracel islands, amid a round of gunboat diplomacy.
The new documents relating to the Code of Conduct are being passed around at the General Assembly in New York by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged all parties to the dispute to get on with earnest negotiations and find a legally binding code.
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