China, Philippines aim for details of South China Sea oil exploration deal ‘within year’
- Both sides still need to agree on how exactly to work together, the Philippine foreign secretary said on local television, as he revealed parts of the ‘confidential’ memorandum of understanding
He said he had personally inserted the deadline into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by him and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday, as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a two-day state visit.
The MOU says “the two governments will endeavour to agree on the cooperation arrangements within 12 months”, Locsin revealed, as he recited several passages from the two-page document during an interview with CNN Philippines on Thursday.
But he could not give out copies of the agreement just yet, he said.
“I’m going to ask [China’s] permission to release it. They trusted me enough to produce an MOU,” he said.
When pressed, he added: “As I said, I will release this when I get permission from China. Not that they are asking me to get permission but I think I owe it to China to have trusted me implicitly to write this as I wanted it.”