"I have come here to participate in finding solutions to the challenges we are facing today. We thank the Indonesian government for having initiated the trilateral meeting," he said here on Wednesday.
He made the statement after holding a bilateral meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi at Pancasila Bulding in the foreign ministrys compound.
The trilateral meeting is scheduled to be held in Yogyakarta on May 5.
"My presence here refutes the reports that the Philippines would not support coordinated activity or would not share information with regard to dealing with problems related to security on the seas. Our presence here is proof that the Philippines is interested to participate in the discussion (trilateral meet)," he said.
The Philippines Foreign Minister also expressed his governments support to the joint efforts to achieve an agreement to deal with piracy carried out by armed groups. Incidents of this nature have been happening lately in the waters bordering the three countries.
He praised the Indonesian governments efforts to secure the release of 10 of its citizens who were recently held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines.
"The Indonesian people must know the fact that the Indonesian government has done its best (to secure the release of hostages)," he said.
The trilateral meeting is being held following an escalating situation regarding sea security in the ASEAN region, especially along the three countries borders where incidents of hijacking of ships by extremist groups have been happening.
On the bilateral meeting, minister Retno expressed thanks to her Philippines counterpart for the countrys support in securing the release of 10 Indonesian boat crew members who were held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf group.
"On behalf of the Indonesian government, I expressed thanks and appreciation to the Philippines government and authorities for their cooperation in the efforts to release the 10 hostages," she said.
She said the Indonesian and Philippines governments are currently cooperating for securing the release of four other hostages, also in the captivity of Abu Sayyaf group.
"We will continue to build good cooperation with regard to releasing the four other hostages," she said.
Besides discussing sea security in the region, the two also discussed settlement of borders, economic cooperation, protection of citizens, ASEAN cooperation and other regional as well as international issues in the bilateral meeting.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
