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Sunday, February 08, 2004
Singapore, RP forge anti-terror pact
MANILA -- Singapore and the Philippines agreed on Saturday to explore further ways of cooperating against terrorism, officials said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Domingo-Albert held discussions with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister for Foreign Affairs Minister S. Jayakumar as part of an official visit to the city-state.
Goh and Albert reviewed the state of bilateral ties and discussed recent developments in Southeast Asia, regional efforts in the war against terrorism, and ways of strengthening cohesiveness in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), a Singapore Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Cooperation
"Minister Jayakumar and Secretary Albert also discussed cooperation in regional and international issues, including closer counter-terrorism cooperation," the spokesman said.
"In this context, they noted that bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation at the operational level was very good," the spokesman said.
They also agreed to explore counter-terrorism cooperation under the framework of the so-called Trilateral Agreement on information sharing initiated by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Albert told journalists that terrorism was one of the subjects she discussed with the Singapore officials.
No comment
But she declined to comment when asked if Singapore raised the issue of the presence of Islamic militant training camps in Camp Abubakar, the main base of the Filipino Muslim separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
"We have to establish that this is so. There are training facilities but who are behind this and their actual links? We have to be very careful in establishing this," she said.
The Muslim-populated southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where Camp Abubakar is located, is regarded as a haven for extremists belonging to the Jemaah Islamiyah, believed to be the Southeast Asian arm of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Singapore said last month that two of 12 people placed under restriction orders for alleged involvement in terrorist-related activities here were MILF members.(AFP)
(February 8, 2004 issue)
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