Australia launches damage-control push after Howard's comments
Australia launches damage-control push after Howard's comments
Agencies, Canberra/Kuala Lumpur
The government on Wednesday called together senior diplomats from
Southeast Asian nations for a meeting in Canberra aimed at
cooling fears Australia is planning preemptive anti-terror
attacks in the region.
Prime Minister John Howard set off a diplomatic storm on
Sunday by saying he would be prepared to launch such strikes to
prevent a terrorist attack on Australia.
Downer said he used Wednesday's damage-control meeting to
explain the comments.
"There has been a certain amount of criticism coming from some
politicians in the region and naturally enough we have an
obligation to deal with that and make the position a little
clearer than it has been," Downer said on Australian Broadcasting
Corp. television.
He said the diplomats who attended the meeting were Canberra-
based, but did not identify them or which countries they came
from.
On Wednesday, Malaysia threatened to break off
counterterrorism cooperation with Australia unless Howard stopped
behaving like "the white-man sheriff in some black country."
Malaysia and Indonesia have said that they would view
unilateral strikes as an act of war and aggression, while the
Philippines said that Australia will be seen as wanting to
dominate the region.
"Their government attitude is not welcome," said Mahathir, who
has long viewed Australia as an unwelcome agent of the United
States in the region.
"We are cooperating as much as we can today in the fight
against terrorism," Mahathir said. "But if they are going to
blame us, we would have to rethink about cooperating with them."
Australia and Malaysia signed an anti-terrorism agreement in
August which provides for increased sharing of intelligence.
The pact was inked in Kuala Lumpur by Australian Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer and his Malaysian counterpart, Syed
Hamid Albar, who said it was testimony to a common desire
cooperate in eliminating international terrorism.
Malaysia has detained more than 70 alleged Islamic militants
since mid-2001, many of them members of the Jamaah Islamiyah
group suspected of involvement in last month's Bali bomb attack
in which almost half of the more than 190 victims were
Australian.
The two countries are also members of a multilateral pact
called the Five Power Defense Arrangement (FPDA), along with
Singapore, Britain and New Zealand.
Malaysia's Defense Minister Najib Razak said on Wednesday that
the pact was not threatened by the row, adding that he believed
Australia would not launch any strikes in Malaysia without the
government's permission.
"I believe the United States and Australian governments
understand our stance on the matter, and will not do anything
without our agreement," he said.
U.S. President George W. Bush has expressed his support for
Howard's statement on the right to preemptive strikes.
Several other countries in Southeast Asia have also condemned
Howard's comments, saying Australia must respect other nations'
sovereignty.
Earlier, Downer tried unsuccessfully to calm fears.
"First of all, the prime minister did not suggest as some of
the media in Southeast Asia are saying he suggested, that
Australia was going off on bombing raids or sending troops into
Southeast Asia," Downer said. "He made no such comment at all."
But Downer also refused to back away from Howard's stance,
which has the backing of the United States, that he could use
"all available means" to stamp out a terrorist threat to
Australia, even if the terrorists were based in another country.
"In those circumstances no prime minister would say that they
would willfully allow an attack on their people, and for their
people to be killed without him or her doing everything possible
to try to stop it," Downer said.