The Philippines’ top diplomat says he has informed his Chinese counterpart that Manila plans to bring their countries’ dispute over the Spratly Islands to a UN tribunal.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said on Monday that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi did not respond when he told him in Beijing last week of the plan to bring the territorial disputes to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.
Mr Del Rosario says Mr Yang reiterated China’s claim to virtually the entire South China Sea and its potentially oil and gas rich islands and repeated that Beijing wants to deal with other claimants bilaterally.
Mr Del Rosario says he told Mr Yang the Philippines prefers a multilateral forum like the United Nations to deal with the disputes.
AP