Defense Chief: “We have to go back”
DEFENSE Secretary Voltaire Gazmin on Thursday admitted that China never pulled its ships from the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, contrary to an earlier announcement by the Foreign Affairs Department.
“The Chinese never left, so we have to go back,” Gazmin said.
President Benigno Aquino III last week ordered the pullout of a Coast Guard vessel and a Bureau of Fisheries ship from the shoal because of typhoon “Butchoy,” but China kept its boats in the area.
Foreign Affairs then announced “a reciprocal pullout” that eased tensions just before the President went to the United States to meet with President Barack Obama.
A gag order was imposed, preventing military officials from discussing the disputed shoal.
But Gazmin on Thursday said the government should send back its civilian ships to the area, saying occupancy would be used as a basis for claims to the area.
The shoal is about 123 nautical miles off Masinloc in Zambales and well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.
China, however, claims the shoal as Huangyan Island, which is more than 800 nautical miles from its exclusive zone.
The Panatag standoff started in April 10 when two Chinese ships stopped the BRP Gregorio del Pilar from arresting Chinese poachers who were caught gathering giant clams, corals and protected maritime resources in the shoal.
On Thursday, the United States said it supported a settlement between Manila and Beijing through the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, a stand China has rejected.
Joy Yamamoto, the US Embassy’s political counselor and acting deputy chief of mission, said they supported efforts to bring the dispute to the international court for settlement.
“We have been very consistent throughout this dispute in supporting international law in settlement… so we continue to support China and the Philippines to settle the issue through international means,” Yamamoto told the reporters.
US Ambassador Harry Thomas said Washington would always push for a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to the tension in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) where a territorial dispute has been brewing for decades.
Meanwhile, China summoned Vietnam’s ambassador Thursday to protest a new law designating a pair of South China Sea island groups as Vietnamese territory.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun told Ambassador Nguyen Van Tho China had sole jurisdiction over the Spratly and Paracel islands, and Vietnam’s inclusion of them under its maritime law was illegal and invalid, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in a briefing.-Manila Standard Today (June 22, 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment