US wants conducive environment for talks on South China Sea code

MANILA, Philippines – Negotiations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea will only be effective if the dialogue will be held in a conducive environment, a US government executive said.

Patrick Murphy, US Department of State principal deputy assistant secretary for Southeast Asia, stressed that the South China Sea issue is among Washington's top priorities.

The developments in the South China Sea was discussed during the US-ASEAN Dialogue in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last Tuesday.

"We noted efforts to achieve a meaningful Code of Conduct between ASEAN and China. That’s a process that was recently launched and will continue going forward," Murphy said in a phone press conference on Thursday.

Washington considers the negotiations on the COC as "good news" as it is inclusive, where all 10 ASEAN member-states and China are involved.

"We also shared concerns about the need to create an environment conducive for dialogue and that means sustaining a prohibition on militarization, construction, reclamation of disputed outposts," he added.

The US is hoping that the process of the COC negotiations would be transparent and would lead to a "binding, meaningful result in accordance with international law."

Murphy further noted that almost half of the world's commerce passes through the disputed waterway, making it an interest of all countries.

The US is not a claimant state but it is interested and engaged in the South China Sea issue for their commerce and for their freedom of navigation and overflight operations.

"No one country should bully or coerce their way to resolve (the dispute). International law provides a blueprint," Murphy said, citing the July 2016 international tribunal ruling on the Philippines' arbitration against China's nine-dash line claim over the South China Sea.

He stressed that the ruling of the United Nations-backed inetrnational tribunal provided clarity on both parties as signatories of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

"So as this dialogue goes forward, we encourage the adherence to the basic principles," Murphy said.

The US State Department executive also called on the ASEAN to ensure the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international law with full respect for legal and diplomatic processes.

"We think ASEAN, as a collective, has a very strong voice and we encourage ASEAN to trust that voice and the assurance to continued principles," he said.

Aside from the South China Sea issue, the developments in the Korean Peninsula were also discussed in the US-ASEAN Dialogue.

Southeast Asian countries and the US welcomed Pyongyang's willingness to engage with Washington on denuclearization.

"They committed to maintaining maximum pressure until the DPRK takes concrete steps towards complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, and called for full implementation of all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions," the US Mission to ASEAN said in a statement.