KL denies encroachment

KL denies encroachment

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): A minister Friday denied Indonesian claims that Malaysian loggers moved border markers on Borneo island so they could steal timber from Indonesian territory.

Land and Cooperative Development Minister Kasitah Gaddam said checks by mapping department officials showed that marker stones were still where they had been planted by joint border demarcation teams.

"Based on the report of the officials, the logging area was also within Malaysian territory and not in Indonesia," the official Bernama news agency quoted Kasitah as saying in the northeastern town of Kota Baru.

"Allegations that Malaysian loggers had encroached into Indonesian territory are unfounded."

Indonesia's Forestry Ministry Secretary-General, Suripto, said this week that Jakarta would take Malaysia to the International Court of Justice if it did nothing to end alleged illegal logging by its citizens along their border.