By Abu Hanifah
JAKARTA, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia initiated a trilateral meeting aimed at promoting coordinated efforts to secure waters in part of Southeast Asian waters from hijacking and smuggling activities, attended by senior officials from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
The high-profile meeting was held in Indonesia's city of Yogyakarta, resulted in a four-point agreement to address security issues in waters of respective countries involved in the trilateral meeting that may hinder trade and economy activities in the region.
The meeting was to respond to escalating hijacking activities against vessels transporting commodities from and to those three countries, kidnapping crews of those vessels for ransoms.
Ten Indonesian seamen were recently released from captivity of a Philippine rebel group Abu Sayyaf after being taken from their coal vessels since late March. Their release was resulted from excellent cooperation between Indonesia and the Philippines authorities, reports said.
Four other Indonesian seamen were still in the kidnaper's custody at present as negotiation process to free them is still underway at the moment. They were kidnapped by the same group in the Philippines' waters last month.
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