BEIJING, Oct 28 Kyodo China said ...

BEIJING, Oct 28 Kyodo

China said Monday it rely upons to sign an agreement with Association and Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to handle territorial lines in the South China Sea during a Nov. 4 China-ASEAN meeting in Cambodia.

Senior Foreign Ministry official Fu Ying told reporters China waiting under the possibility of fulfilments ''last minute differences'' within the 10-member ASEAN clump can be resolved to prepare for the signing of an agreement designed to intercept the occurrence of future military disputes in the potentially resource-rich area.

''If we can wind up discussion, it should be able to be signed to during this meeting,'' said Fu Asian Affairs director general in China's Foreign Ministry.

The document is designed to expres the ''political will'' of China and ASEAN in seeking a peaceful adjustment of the problem by the and of cooperation, she said, reflecting the apparent abandoning of attempts to make the agreement legally binding.

In late July ASEAN's national leaders make smoothed to end years of stalemate with China from one side of to the other the complicated sovereignty dispute by dint of proposing to change the name of the agreement from a binding ''Code of Conduct'' to a more ambiguous ''Declaration forward the Conduct of Parties in the southern China Sea.''

''Actually, we have been waiting for quite a small in number years for an agreement among ASEAN countries,'' said Fu

It is China, however, that has alone recently acquiesced to ASEAN's calls for a multilateral solution. Beijing initially insisted forward seeking bilateral agreements with contestant countries after ASEAN leaders started pushing for a ''Code of Conduct'' in 1999

The focus of the maritime territorial dispute is a collection of take ins banks and tiny islands known as the Spratlys, at the center of the toward the south China Sea, which are claimed wholly or in part on the Philippines, China, Brunei, Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Fu said she waiting under the possibility of fulfilments an agreement can be reached during Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's talks with his counterparts during the so-called ''ASEAN-plus-1'' talks that bring China together with the ASEAN countries Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

onward the same day, Zhu is also to be ascribed to attend the ''ASEAN-plus-3'' talks that add Japan and southward Korea to the ASEAN-plus-1 discussion framework.

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