Defence Minister shines in international debut

FMT - Denuclearisation: Don’t just focus on N Korea or Iran, says Mat Sabu (extracts):

SINGAPORE: Malaysia hopes efforts towards denuclearisation will not focus only on certain countries like North Korea and Iran, said Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu.

“It needs to be applied to all countries,” he told the media on the sidelines of the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) here today.

Mohamad, popularly known as Mat Sabu, said Malaysia welcomed the nuclear talks between United States President Donald J Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un scheduled to take place in Singapore on June 12.

“It’s a good effort… We the world did experience atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We don’t want it to be repeated in the Asian region.

“That was the technology 60 or 70 years ago. We do not know the nuclear technology that we have now.

“It is very dangerous and we will give our full support to any effort towards denuclearisation,” he said.

Asked to comment on US Secretary of Defence James Mattis’s speech that was rather hard on China, Mat Sabu said Malaysia had always maintained its neutrality, something that the country has been championing since the time of second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein.

In his speech, Mattis had specifically called out Beijing’s militarisation of artificial islands in the area.

“We do not want any clash to occur in the South China Sea and we are very concerned about what is happening there,” said Mat Sabu, adding that Asean member countries had always carried out dialogues with both China and the United States.

Not a bad interview for a defence newbie like Mat Sabu.

founders of ASEAN 

Apart from dexterously pointing out Malaysia's neutrality a la Tun Razak's ZOPFAN (ASEAN's zone of peace, freedom and neutrality) to ameliorate his views on the US hard-line verbal aggression against China in the latter's island-building in the South China Sea, Mat Sabu also cleverly reminded everyone of the 'elephant in the room'.

190 nations have signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPA). With the exceptions of the Biggies, namely, USA, Russia (formerly USSR), Britain, France, China and India (today we must definitely include India among the Biggies), only Israel, Pakistan and the newly born nation of South Sudan (2011) have not signed the treaty. North Korea had initially signed it but subsequently withdrew.

Thus, instead of the USA just focusing on Iran and North Korea, it's hypocritical of the Yanks not to include Israel among the 'recalcitrant' who don't want to sign the NPA. That's the irritating double standards of the USA.

In fact, it has been reported (by Reuters) that US officials were annoyed by international efforts to single out Israel. It even has the shameless brazen nerve to say the proposal to induct Israel as a signatory to the NPA will go nowhere, and that the Middle East could not be declared WMD-free until broad Arab-Israeli peace prevailed and Iran curbed its uranium enrichment programme.

Avoiding the BIG Israeli elephant in the room.

Well pointed out, Mat Sabu. Well done for a new Defence Minister. Syabas.