By Alexis Romero
BANGKOK – China will host a meeting with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in May to discuss the framework for the code of conduct for claimants in the South China Sea dispute.
The meeting, to be attended by senior officials, aims to thresh out the possible elements of a binding code of conduct in a bid to defuse tension over the maritime dispute, acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said yesterday.
“China will be hosting a meeting in May and hopefully, maybe by that time, we will have made significant progress on the framework,” Manalo told reporters in a press conference here.
“The hope (is) that by the time we get to the meeting in May, senior officials in the ASEAN-China DOC (declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea) may be able to have at least a preliminary agreement on the framework.
“The Philippines is fully committed to seeing that we can get to that point,” he added.
ASEAN member-countries and China signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002 to settle maritime disputes peacefully. It has been 14 years since the declaration was signed yet the parties have not formulated a binding code of conduct.
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