Jakarta fears Singapore will use reclaimed shoreline to decide border

The Straits Times, March 17, 2007


SINGAPORE and Indonesia signed a border pact in Jakarta on May 25, 1973, specifying six coordinate points at sea as markers for their common boundary.

Straight lines drawn from these positions - equidistant points from the two countries' outermost tips - became the border.

But areas to the east and west of the two extreme points are still unmarked.

In the ongoing border talks, Indonesia says Singapore wants to use its reclaimed shoreline, not the original one, as the datum to determine the mid-points between the two countries.

Jakarta's fears about how Singapore's expansion could harm it are symbolised by Pulau Nipa - Indonesia's datum for the western-most coordinate point of the 1973 border.

Indonesians have claimed that the island is almost submerged.

In 2004, then president Megawati Sukarnoputri erected a plaque on the decimated island to assert Indonesia's sovereignty over the area.

Uninhabited Pulau Nipa, which has no obvious economic value, is now being reclaimed from the sea at a cost of 240 billion rupiah (S$40 million).