indonesia, malaysia and the philippines are launching a maritime patrol in the sulu and celebes seas. of kidnap for ransom incidents since last year. many of which have been attributed to the abu sayyaf militant group operating out of the southern philippines. i spoke to maritime defence expert collin koh and asked him why it took so much time for the region to agree on this security arrangement. there are actually a few issues, one has to do with the political issue of sensitivity for one another‘s sovereignty. initially deferring that perception when it comes to the severity of these issues. of course i think there is something more practical, it is to do with the need to not just co—ordinate with agencies of these three countries but within each country, the co—ordination of various agencies because it's very unlike the case of the malacca strait when we're dealing with piracy and armed robery, we are looking at dealing with terrorism so you're requiring co—operation between the defence ministry, foreign ministry as well as home industry, so it's a complex undertaking. it is indeed

trilateral controls ,eginning in the sulu sea bordered by the philippines and malaysia and indonesia.re extremely worried that these unregulated seas will be used as a conduit for terrorists getting into places like the southern philippines. patrol going to try a later this month. said heapore minister was happy to include many countries, but china was left off the list. he was very noncommittal. if chinarn is that gets involved in the patrols, it will try to legitimize its own territorial claims, as we have seen the china navy do around the atolls in the south china sea. it uses its navy and coast guard as a way of asserting its civilian rights and therefore it's sovereign rights over areas of disputed territory. that makes asian countries extremely uneasy. rishaad: absolutely. the events over the weekend in of chieft must be interest at a conference such as this one. david: yes, of course. the reason why they are having these patrols in the sulu sea is precisely to combat terrorism and piracy. piracy is something terrorists used to fund themselves. there is a string -- is an extreme

you'd be forgiven if you didn't know where the sulu and celebes seas are.retch of water in south—east asia is one of the riskiest regions in the world. i spoke to maritime defence expert collin koh from nanyang technological university and asked him why it took so much time for the region to agree on this security arrangement. actually there are a few issues, the main one has to do with the political issue of sensitivity for one another‘s sovereignty. that's the problem when it comes to the severity of this issue and there is something more practical, the need to not just co—ordinate something more practical, the need to notjust co—ordinate with agencies of these three countries but within each country the co—ordination of various agencies because it's unlike the case of the macau straight when we are looking at piracy, we are dealing with terrorism so your requiring co—operation between the home industry and the foreign ministry so it's complex. it is a complex undertaking but have all these three countries got their heads together with the political will