Not right to say BN ranting about Pulau Batu Puteh, says former Johor MB
JOHOR BARU: Former menteri besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has stressed that the Pulau Batu Puteh issue was important as it involves national sovereignty.
He said he did not know how Barisan Nasional saying it was an important matter could be considered meroyan (ranting).
“This is about (national) sovereignty, so I don’t think bringing up the matter can be considered ranting.
“This is important. It is not right for (the state government) to not consider it, as it involves national sovereignty and it is part of Johor.
“I hope the menteri besar (Datuk Osman Sapian) would differentiate between issues which are important and those that are not, because if they (the state government) think that bringing this (Pulau Batu Puteh issue) up is ‘ranting ’, then they do not think it is important.
“They said this (losing Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore) was BN’s fault.
“I don’t see how this is BN’s fault because this was brought to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 10 years ago, and the court based its decision on evidence, which showed that apart from the Johor secretary’s letter from before Merdeka, it was Singapore’s territory.
“So, when did BN make the mistake? Back then, (before Merdeka) was there even a BN?”
He wanted an explanation as to why the government had withdrawn the previous government’s appeal to ICJ as it had new evidence to show that Pulau Batu Puteh belonged to Malaysia.
“What is the basis for this?
“Malaysia has three new pieces of strong evidence. Who made the decision that the evidence was not documents — the internal correspondence of the Singaporean colonial authorities in 1958, an incident report filed in 1958 by a British naval officer and an annotated map of naval operations from the 1960s.
Malaysia, in its appeal to ICJ, had argued that these documents showed that Pulau Batu Puteh belonged to Malaysia.
Khaled said Osman’s reply that the matter would be best left to the Federal Government as the state government did not have in-depth knowledge of the matter was “irresponsible”.