Jakarta. A Singaporean senior official said Tuesday that his country had always kept the Strait of Malacca open, something that he attributed to a long-standing partnership with Indonesia and Malaysia, its close neighbors that border the waterway.

Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan nudged other parts of the world -- particularly Iran -- into copying what the trio had done to keep the 900-kilometer-long shipping lane open amid a persisting Hormuz blockade. Balakrishnan made the statement in a joint press briefing with his Indonesian counterpart Sugiono in Jakarta.

“Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore have been able to maintain the Strait of Malacca and Singapore as an open, safe, and vital waterway,” Balakrishnan told reporters.

“... including the cooperative mechanisms that we have formulated pursuant to our clause as a positive model that could apply to other areas in the world.”

Balakrishnan had just spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi the previous night. He asked Araghchi to check out what ASEAN nations had done to keep the region at peace, including how the trio worked together in the Strait of Malacca.

“I took the opportunity to invite [Aragchi] to our region and to see how, in our region, in the midst of great diversity, but also great potential for development, the importance of regional peace, rules-based order, and abiding by the UNCLOS,” Balakrishnan said.

The UNCLOS is the decades-old maritime law that grants Indonesia its archipelagic statehood. The document also upholds freedom of navigation, while declaring that any toll for passage would be illegal. Countries are also increasingly mentioning the UNCLOS since Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz following US-Israeli airstrikes on its capital in late February. Roughly a quarter of the global seaborne oil trade flows through this strait, and its closure has dealt a blow to ASEAN nations’ energy supplies. Two Indonesian tankers have been unable to exit the strait for months now.

Balakrishnan’s statement also came not long after Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa found himself in hot water after making an ill-received joke that Indonesia should collect taxes in the Strait of Malacca, which carries nearly 22% of the global maritime trade. The government -- including Purbaya himself -- had clarified that there were no changes to Jakarta’s stance of honoring the UNCLOS of keeping the waters open. Jakarta had previously said that the Malacca levy was no longer an issue.

Add as a preferred source on Google +