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Taiwan will respect UN ruling on Okinotori status: Cabinet spokesman

ROC Central News Agency

2016/05/30 17:27:46

Taipei, May 30 (CNA) Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) reiterated Monday that the government holds no special position on the issue of a disputed marine area near the Japan-held Okinotori atoll and will "respect" the ruling of an international arbitration on the issue.

"Before the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) delivers a ruling, the government will not take any specific legal stance on the issue," Tung said.

Until then, he said, the rights to the waters near the Okinotori reefs will remain in dispute, he said.

Tung's remarks, a reiteration of his statement on May 25, came shortly after Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said that the Japan-held Okinotori atoll is just a reef and therefore not entitled to a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

"There is no question that Okinotori basically is a reef and has no right to have a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone," Yeh told a legislative hearing, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Okinotori lies 860 nautical miles south of Erluanbi, Taiwan's southernmost tip.

The issue arose from the detention of a Taiwanese shipping boat -- the Tung Sheng Chi No. 16 -- by Japan's coast guard on April 25 in international waters near Okinotori. The ship and its crew were released only after the family of the ship captain paid a deposit of 6 million yen (US$54,442) as demanded by the Japanese authorities.

Since then, Taiwan patrol vessels have been deployed to the area to protect Taiwanese fishing boats operating there.

The former Kuomintang (KMT) administration, under then President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), had said Japan was entitled only to a 12- nautical-mile marine territory in the area because Okinotori was nothing more than a reef.

Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to office on May 20, however, Taiwan has taken a less forceful approach toward the dispute. This has fueled anger among Taiwanese fishermen who have been demanding that the DPP government maintain the KMT's policy and protect their rights to operate there.

In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan maintains a policy that maritime disputes should be resolved peacefully through international arbitration or negotiations among all the parties concerned, in line with international law.

Until the CLCS hands down its ruling on the legal status of Okinotori, Japan should respect the rights of Taiwan and other countries to fish and freely navigate in that area, the ministry said.

It said Taiwan's government has always maintained that Japan has no right to claim a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone using Okinotori as a base point, and has repeatedly relayed this stance to Japan.

According to the MOFA, in 2008, Japan applied to the CLCS for recognition of Okinotori as an extension of a continental shelf. In response, the CLCS agreed in 2012 that the area north of Okinotori can be considered an extension of a continental shelf, but it has yet to decide the status of the area south of the reef, the ministry said.

(By Y.C. Tai and Flor Wang)
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