Foreign troops 'not option' for Malacca Strait

Foreign troops 'not option' for Malacca Strait

Patrick Chalmers, Reuters/ Kuala Lumpur

Foreign troops are not part of any plan to boost security in the
Strait of Malacca, a vital sea lane carrying a third of world
trade, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on
Friday.

Washington and staunch local ally Singapore have voiced alarm
over the risk of pirates linked to terror groups attacking
tankers or other vessels in the busy strait, calling for beefed
up security measures.

But Malaysia and Indonesia, on either side of the strait, have
bridled at suggestions foreign forces might be used to help
protect the waterway, its shipping and the countries along it.

"I don't think on the coast of the Strait anybody's looking at
foreign forces being stationed there or new bases being
established. I think the age of foreign bases being established
is passing," Downer told Reuters in an interview.

He was sketchy on exact plans to protect the area, a 805-km
channel through which about 50,000 commercial vessels pass each
year, including ships ferrying 80 percent of Japan's oil needs.

Downer, speaking at the end of a two-day visit to Malaysia,
said any security plan should not make regional countries feel as
though their own security efforts were inadequate.

The United States is expected soon to start talks with Asian
nations on a Regional Maritime Security Initiative, an as yet
ill-defined plan whose focus will be to boost cooperation.

Singapore has repeatedly warned of the potential link between
pirates and militant networks such as Jamaah Islamiyah, blamed
for the deadly 2002 bomb blasts on the Indonesian island of Bali
and widely linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak announced plans this
week for anti-hijack and surveillance maritime exercises within
the Five Powers Defense Arrangements, its decades-old alliance
with Australia, Britain and New Zealand and Singapore.

Downer said Australia, Malaysia and Singapore would soon hold
more talks on security for the Strait of Malacca but gave little
detail.

"We are in the process of talking about that, what could we do
at the military level that we're not already doing," he said.

"Our ships pass through Southeast Asia, our aircraft pass
through Southeast Asia, it's not as though we have no involvement
at all at this stage," he added.

Absent from the group is Indonesia -- Singapore and Malaysia's
giant neighbor -- which security experts see as a breeding ground
for militants. But Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim majority
state, launched a campaign against terrorism and arrested the
persons involved in the Bali Bombings and brought them to the
court.

Indonesia's Bali bomb blasts killed 202 people, most of them
foreign tourists and including 88 Australians.

Asked about counter-terror efforts in Southeast Asia, Downer
backed education, more policing and intelligence sharing.

Australia is a staunch U.S. ally and sent troops to Iraq last
year. But Canberra's close ties with Washington has angered some
countries in Southeast Asia and led to accusations of being the
United States' "deputy sheriff" in the region.