Once again, Indonesia proved its ability in delimiting maritime boundaries with its neighbours. After an approximately 5-year intensive negotiation, Indonesia managed to agree a maritime boundary segment with Singapore in the Strait of Singapore (The Jakarta Post, February 4, 2009). The existing agreement between the two countries was signed in 1973 delimiting territorial sea between Singapore and Indonesia?s Pulau Batam. The segment is ?floating? containing six turning points. Point P1 is at the western tip and point P6 is at the eastern tip of the line. Beyond these two points at the western side and eastern side are gaps. Apparently, Indonesia and Singapore managed to close one of the gaps by agreeing a new line starting from point P1 westward.

This new maritime boundary is the second one with Singapore, 36 years after the first one was concluded. For Indonesia, this is also the second one in the 21st century with a maritime boundary segment with Vietnam concluded in June 2003. The boundary was negotiated with Vietnam for approximately 25 years since 1978. Previously, in 1997, a maritime boundary line was agreed between Indonesia and Australia after the first maritime boundary signed between the two countries in 1971. This proved that maritime boundary negotiation is by no mean easy to conclude. It is consequently imaginable, how complex it is for Indonesia to settle maritime boundaries with ten neighbours: India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Timor Leste.