Relations with Malaysia 'improved' : Jayakumar

SINGAPORE Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law S. Jayakumar told parliament Monday that bilateral relations between Singapore and Malaysia improved following their prime ministers met in November and December last year but Singaporeans must expect ups and downs from time to time in the relations between two the neighbors.

Jayakumar reiterated that Singapore is committed to forging a long-term mutually beneficial relationship with Malaysia and will manage bilateral ties on the basis of reciprocity and mutual respect for each other's interests, stressing that the two countries are bound by a multiplicity of complex ties and such close relationship must inevitably go through different phases.

Spelling out recent developments in the bilateral relations, Jayakumar said that relations between Singapore and Malaysia have seen many ups and downs since the House discussed the issue on June 29, 1998.

"We ran into a rough patch with the CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) issue in July 1998 when we rejected Malaysia's claim to any legal right to locate its facilities in Tanjong Pagar," he said.

He was referring to Malaysia's refusal to relocate its facilities of Customs, Immigration and Quarantine from Tanjong Pagar in southern Singapore to Singapore's northern tip town of Woodlands as Singapore moved its own CIQ there.

Jayakumar also mentioned that Malaysia, without prior notification, unilaterally revoked the Singapore air force's access to Malaysian airspace given under earlier agreement following the "furor in Malaysia" over the launch of Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs.

The foreign minister said that Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad were working towards concluding a "mutually beneficial water agreement in return for our financial assistance from Singapore."

"At their last meeting in Hanoi on December 17, 1998, Mahathir said that Malaysia no longer needed financial assistance from Singapore and instead he proposed Singapore and Malaysia could begin to discuss all outstanding bilateral issues, including the long-term supply of water to Singapore, within an overall package," He said

Jayakumar said both prime ministers then agreed that the package would include issues like the withdrawal of West Malaysian CPF (Central Provident Fund), the long-term supply of water to Singapore, Malaysian company's land in Singapore, Singapore air force's use of Malaysian airspace and the location of Malaysia's CIQ facilities.

Singapore had informed the Malaysian side that before Singapore could proceed to the negotiations on the package, Malaysia would have to recognize Singapore's sovereignty and not claim that it had legal right to operate its CIQ in Singapore, Jayakumar said.

According to the foreign minister, Malaysia sent to Singapore on February 10 a paper which did not claim a legal right to operate its customs and immigration facilities in Singapore and Singapore replied on February 18, informing that Singapore was ready to proceed with discussion on a package of outstanding issues.

Senior officials from the two countries met on March 11 in Singapore for discussion of items on the package of outstanding issues.

Without disclosing the detail of the discussion, Jayakumar said, "We are negotiating to arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome."