Russian foreign minister says final declaration not adopted because of attempts by US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and NZ ‘to turn it into a purely political statement’

Russia and China blocked a proposed consensus statement for the East Asia Summit drafted by south-east Asian countries, mainly over objections to language on the contested South China Sea, a US official said on Saturday.

A draft statement arrived at by consensus by the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations was put to the 18-nation East Asia Summit meeting in Laos on Thursday evening, the official said.

…

The US official said there were a couple of issues of contention, but the key one was how it referred to the UN convention on the law of the sea (Unclos), going further than in the previous 2023 EAS statement.