Jakarta. Indonesia has chosen the path of negotiations in navigating the Ambalat sea block dispute with Malaysia as the disagreements cast a shadow over their relations. Amidst this diplomatic approach, Indonesia intends to defend its national interests, according to its government.

The Ambalat lies in the Sulawesi Sea. Indonesia and Malaysia share overlapping claims over this oil-rich maritime area.

Just earlier this week, Kuala Lumpur reaffirmed its disapproval of Indonesia’s use of the term Ambalat, thus adding fuel to the decades-old disagreements over who owns the territory. Malaysia prefers to refer to the territory by Blocks ND6 and ND7, and considers them to be part of the Sulawesi Sea. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim recently promised that his country would "protect every inch of Sabah" in the discussions with Indonesia. Kuala Lumpur also intends to negotiate it "properly, without surrendering".

President Prabowo stated Thursday that Indonesia would look for peaceful means. A day later, Foreign Affairs Minister Sugiono briefly commented that Jakarta would “resolve [the issue] amicably through diplomacy”. Senior diplomat Abdulkadir Jailani had a longer response to the issue that had been making headlines. 

“The Indonesian government remains committed to peaceful resolutions on maritime border disputes, namely by engaging in negotiations. We are both ASEAN members and neighbors. And so we shall maintain ASEAN’s principles of always sorting out our differences through peaceful means,” Abdulkadir said in a news conference in Jakarta on Friday.

Abdulkadir revealed that negotiations had undergone 43 rounds since 2005. When asked what the biggest hurdle was that caused the talks to go on for so long, the diplomat admitted that border negotiations had their very own “tough technical complexities”.

“And [such discussions] take time. In that negotiation process, Indonesia will continue to prioritize our national interests, and also follow the principles as stated by the UNCLOS [the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea],” Abdulkadir told the press. 

The Ambalat dispute came to the spotlight amidst celebrations of ASEAN’s 58th year since its formation. Prabowo was originally scheduled to join the anniversary celebrations at the bloc’s secretariat in Jakarta, but had sent Sugiono to attend on his behalf. At the center of the dispute is a possible joint development of Ambalat’s oil and gas reserves. However, the Malaysian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that talks on the co-development plan were still on the “exploratory stage”, denying that both sides had reached an agreement. 

It is likely that both countries will have their respective state-run oil firms -- Indonesia’s Pertamina and Malaysia’s Petronas -- to join forces if that happens. Edi Karyanto, a director at the upstream sector arm Pertamina Hulu Energi, recently said that his company was waiting for further instructions from the Indonesian government. 

“We possess the technical and financial competence, be it for the development of a semi-submersible platform or jack-up rigs,” Edi said last week, referring to the available types of mobile offshore drilling units.