ASEAN did not issue a joint statement on the South China Sea ruling.

ASEAN has decided not to issue a joint statement on the Arbitration Tribunal's ruling rejecting China's self-proclaimed "nine-dash line" claim in the South China Sea.

ASEAN foreign ministers attended a special meeting with China in Kunming in June. Photo: AFP.

Kyodo is leading today.Sources from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) indicate that the bloc has decided not to issue any joint statement on the July 12 ruling by the Hague Arbitration Tribunal, which rejected China's unfounded sovereignty claims over most of the South China Sea.

The 10 ASEAN member states were informed by Laos, the rotating chair for 2016, on the night of July 13th that the association would not issue a joint statement due to a lack of consensus.

"We have abandoned the issuance of the ASEAN statement. The ASEAN Chair informed us of this decision due to the inability to reach a consensus," the source said.

Sources confirmed that ASEAN member states had discussed the possibility of issuing a joint statement after the Arbitration Tribunal announced its ruling on the Philippines' case, but declined to disclose details of which countries opposed such a statement.Previously, Cambodia, a country with close ties to China, had publicly opposed such a move.

According to Kyodo, ASEAN has recently struggled to reach a consensus on issuing a joint statement on the South China Sea, as some member states fear jeopardizing their relationship with Beijing, which provides significant financial assistance for their infrastructure development.

According to VNE