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Kuala Lumpur  (ANTARA News) - Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to hold four more meetings until December 2010 to settle their disputes over common ea borders.

The agreement to accelerate the settlement of the dispute was made at the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting attended by Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and his Malaysian counterpart Anifah Aman in Kota Kinabalu on Monday.

"The two ministers would meet again on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on the third week of September 2010. The 16th and 17th technical meetings have also been scheduled on October 11-12, 2010 in Malaysia and on November 23-24, 2010 in Indonesia," Marty said at a joint press conference with minister Anifah Aman.

Marty said they would also meet again at the JCBC meeting in December 2010. "So there will be intensive meetings to settle the sea border problem namely two technical meetings and two foreign ministerial meetings until December 2010," he said.

"We are satisfied enough with the results of the meeting in Kota Kinabalu as it had produced a schedule for four meetings to accelerate the settlement of the sea borderline between Indonesia and Malaysia on the Strait of Malacca, the Singapore Strait and the South China Sea and the Sulawesi Strait," he said.

Besides producing the schedule for talks the two countries also agreed to implement a new standard operating procedure and rule of engagement to deal with officials assigned in the fields to prevent the recurrence of officials` arrest in the future.

Three Indonesian fisheries officials were recently arrested by Malaysian marine police in the Indonesian Bintan waters while catching Malaysian fish poachers causing tension in the relations between the countries.

Malaysian foreign minister Anifah Aman meanwhile said the two countries agreed to include the civilian sea security coordination agency from Indonesia Bakorkamla and Malaysian maritime agency (APPMM) into the existing General Border Committee structure.

The improvement of the SOP and ROE was important as the process of negotiations would take a long time.

Anifah expressed the need for an information system that could immediately identify fishing boats in the sea so that sea security personnel could immediately give a warning before they violate the border.

"An intensive meeting is also needed to be held between sea security officials of the two countries so that they could know each other better and develop better relationship as neighboring countries," he said.

The meeting between the two ministers lasted from 3pm to 4pm which was continued by a meeting between the two countries` delegations.
(Uu.H-YH/HAJM/A014/P003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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