ASEAN nations urged to join antiterrorism pact
ASEAN nations urged to join antiterrorism pact
Agencies, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia on Friday urged all Southeast Asian nations to accede to a trilateral anti-terrorism pact it signed with Indonesia and Philippines to forge an ASEAN agreement.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said he would raise the matter at next month's annual talks with his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Brunei.
He said Thailand, Laos and Singapore had so far expressed interest in joining the pact sealed last month in Kuala Lumpur to combat terrorist groups and prevent them from using their assets for transnational crime.
The treaty took calls for joint training exercises, the establishment of hotlines, standard procedures on search and rescue, and the sharing of intelligence.
"I will bring it up at the forthcoming ASEAN ministerial meeting in Brunei. We hope that other countries will accede to this agreement. It's a very constructive, useful agreement," he told reporters.
"We think that post-September 11, it is useful to exchange information to combat the greater threat of international terrorism, things that may affect transnational crime, funds of terrorists that may be kept in each other's country or information that we obtained from third parties."
Syed Hamid said Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was likely to discuss terrorism and the need for greater ASEAN cooperation with his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatra during his July 5-7 visit to Thailand.
It is Mahathir's first trip to Thailand since Thaksin was elected in January last year.
ASEAN security ministers at a special meeting on terrorism in Kuala Lumpur last month endorsed the use of preventive laws to fight the scourge but failed to agree on the definition of terrorism.
They also lauded the pact among Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines to combat terrorism but stopped short of mapping out a regional agreement.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.