Malaysia summons Singapore envoy over espionage report

A view of the causeway bordering Malaysia’s southern state of Johor Bahru (background) and Singapore (foreground).

AFP/Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia’s foreign ministry summoned the ambassador from neighbouring Singapore yesterday over a media report that the city-state helped with US-Australian surveillance in the region.

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman had already summoned the heads of the US and Australian missions earlier in November in protest at reports that a vast US-led surveillance network included a listening post in America’s Malaysian embassy.

Malaysia is “extremely concerned” about the report on Singapore, Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said yesterday.

“If those allegations are eventually proven, it is certainly a serious matter that the government of Malaysia strongly rejects and abhors,” he said.

The foreign ministry said Singapore’s high commissioner (ambassador) Ong Keng Yong met Othman Hashim, the ministry’s secretary-general.

The spying allegation has generated anger among Malaysians as Singapore is a close trading partner and fellow member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi appeared to try to cool the row by saying that Kuala Lumpur was prepared to share intelligence with Singapore.

“In principle, no other country should be trying to obtain the secrets of another nation,” he was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper. “But we are ready to share the information if the intelligence concerns these countries, so they should respect us as a neighbouring country,” he added.

Monday’s report in the Sydney Morning Herald said Singapore and South Korea played key roles in a “Five Eyes” intelligence network grouping the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It quoted a top-secret US National Security Agency (NSA) map that it said was published by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

As a major hub for regional telecommunications traffic, high-tech Singapore was an important link in the surveillance network, it said.

The US is struggling to dampen a global controversy over its eavesdropping activities.

Based on leaks by fugitive US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, the revelations have included reports that the NSA monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone and sparked a trans-Atlantic rift.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this month that a map leaked by Snowden showed 90 US surveillance facilities at diplomatic missions worldwide including in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, sparking anger in some of those countries.

Malaysia and Singapore have been trying to put decades of testy relations behind them, working together on real estate development along their border and pushing plans for closer transport links.