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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider ASEAN to hold monthly meetings to expedite South China Sea conduct talks — Lazaro

ASEAN to hold monthly meetings to expedite South China Sea conduct talks — Lazaro

Published Jan 29, 2026 04:04 pm
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed to conduct monthly in-person meetings to expedite the conclusion of talks on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, as relevant parties have yet to iron out respective disagreements on its terms and other technicalities for 17 years now.
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro announced that the Philippines, as chair of this year's ASEAN summits, will host until the end of 2026 the rounds of negotiations that will be led by members of the technical working group formed particularly to discuss the future sea conduct.
The next round of COC talk is expected by end of January or early February at the sidelines of ASEAN meetings in Cebu.
Following the ASEAN Foreign Ministers (AMM) Retreat—a meeting of all top diplomats of the 11-member ASEAN—in Cebu on Thursday, Lazaro faced the media and disclosed that she and her counterparts agreed to "endeavor to conclude the negotiations of an effective and substantive code of conduct that is in accordance with international law, particularly the 1982 UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), within this year."
ASEAN members have been negotiating the COC with China for years to prevent more conflicts at sea, but progress has stalled due to four so-called milestone issues that parties have not resolved.
The milestone issues are the connection between the COC and the non-binding Declaration of Conduct (DOC) on the South China Sea; the legal binding of the final document; the COC's geographical scope; and the definition of terms, such as "self-restraint."
Lazaro said "there's not been any result or decision on the contentious issues," but she disclosed that some ASEAN members are now coming up "with a paper on one of the milestone issues," and others are starting to follow.
"So now everybody is trying to put in definitions as well as possible areas of cooperation and... I mean, trying to address the milestone issues," she said.
"There were other member states who are now coming up with papers on the milestones issues... One of the issues is the definition of 'self-restraint.' So that is, our delegation is working on... possible terms of reference of that issue," she added.
Saying ASEAN members are now "doubly, triply working hard to make sure there's a confluence or consensus" on the COC, Lazaro said the ultimate goal for the ASEAN members is the termination of the negotiations and the signing of the sea conduct. All ASEAN members want it to happen, she said.
"I would love being an optimist. I would like to say that [I have] a high level of confidence [in concluding the talks]," she said.
"But being a pragmatist, I would say that I cannot really predict, but this is what we're going to do as a strategy. We, the Philippines, now as chair, will have monthly face-to-face meetings of the technical working group. And that has been a commitment, and as it is a proposal and was accepted by our ASEAN colleagues," she added.
Lazaro added that she is not seeing any difficulties also securing agreement from China, ASEAN's dialogue partner.
"We're in the process of talking to them... I mean, I'm just again being an optimist," she said.

Related Tags

ASEAN Code of Conduct Ma. Theresa Lazaro DFA South China Sea
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