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Philippines grants wider military access to U.S. amid cross-strait tensions

ROC Central News Agency

02/02/2023 10:36 PM

Manila, Feb. 2 (CNA) The United States and the Philippines have agreed to giving the American military access to four more bases in the Southeast Asian country, the two countries' defense departments said in a joint statement Thursday, amid rising likelihood of conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The joint statement was issued after a meeting between U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who is on a visit to Manila, and Philippine Defense Minister Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier that day.

In the statement, the U.S. and the Philippines announced their plans to accelerate the full implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which authorizes U.S. forces access to agreed locations in the Philippines on a rotational basis.

"The addition of these new EDCA locations will allow more rapid support for humanitarian and climate-related disasters in the Philippines, and respond to other shared challenges," the statement read.

The defense departments did not said where the four additional bases will be located, but two or three of them could be in Cagayan and Isabela provinces on northern Luzon, an island in northern Philippines, which is separated from Taiwan by the 250-kilometer-wide Luzon Strait, according to military sources of the Philippines.

Given the close proximity of the two provinces to Taiwan, if U.S. troops are granted access to military bases there, this would allow Washington to take prompt action in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, according to the sources.

Thursday's agreement also includes the completion of projects in the five existing bases for which access to the U.S. has already been agreed on.

The U.S. has allocated over US$82 million for infrastructure investments at the existing five bases under the EDCA, according to the defense departments.

(By Angie Chen and Evelyn Kao)

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