U.S., Japan to play larger roles in Malacca Strait security
U.S., Japan to play larger roles in Malacca Strait security
Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse/Singapore
The United States and Japan will play a bigger role in protecting the Malacca Strait amid gathering momentum for greater international cooperation in securing the region's waters, Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said on Sunday.
Najib told a regional security conference in Singapore that the primary responsibility for protecting ships in the pirate- infested Malacca Strait still rested with Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, the three nations with sovereignty over the waterway.
However, after years of resistance to other nations becoming heavily involved in Malacca Strait security, Najib said Malaysia was becoming increasingly willing to accept greater international help.
"Given the huge resources in terms of assets, capabilities and manpower required to secure the strait, we should call upon the wider international community... to step forward and make concrete contributions to support ongoing efforts by the littoral states," Najib said.
Although non-littoral states will still not be allowed to send their own forces to patrol the strait, Najib said nations with a big commercial stake in the waterway such as the United States and Japan will be asked to help in "capacity building".
Najib said Malaysia would welcome the support of mobile training teams from the U.S. Pacific Command and nations such as Japan could help in information sharing and building a high-tech radar-to-satellite tracking system.
"Within that concept of capacity building, I think the scope is very large... I think a whole gamut of possibilities are there," he said.
The Malacca Strait is one of the world's most important stretches of water, with 50,000 ships carrying about one third of the globe's trade passing through it each year.
However the strait, 960 kilometers long and 1.2 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, is notoriously vulnerable to pirate attacks and many governments in the region also believe extremely tempting for terrorists.
In a speech to open the Asia Security Conference on Friday night, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned the threat of a terrorist attack in the Malacca Strait was "real and urgent".
"We know that terrorists have been studying maritime targets across the region. The recent spate of violent pirate attacks in the Malacca Straits shows up our vulnerabilities only too clearly," he said.
The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. William Fallon, shared the stage for a plenary session at the conference with Najib and he welcomed a greater role for the United States in Malacca Strait security.
"Pacific Command can facilitate maritime security efforts. Working closely with other U.S. agencies, we can, and will, offer capabilities and cooperation to address the difficult problems before us," Fallon said in a speech.
"Working collectively, nations can bring their individual capabilities, skills and areas of expertise to bear. We should work to encourage transparency and trust and find ways to incentivise cooperative behavior."
Japan has long pushed for greater involvement in protecting the strait and Japanese Minister of State for Defense Yoshinori Ohno reiterated his nation's position at the conference on Saturday.
"We believe that it is necessary for the countries in the region to exchange views towards possible future cooperation," Ohno said in a speech.
Singapore Defense Minister Teo Chee Hean also told reporters on the sidelines of the conference on Saturday that Asian nations were moving towards a consensus on how to protect the Malacca Strait.
Teo said the improving atmosphere for co-operation could even open the door for joint patrols between Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, in which their forces are allowed to cross into each nation's waters in "hot pursuit" of a suspect.