Minister of Defence, Mohamad Sabu is now in United States of America (USA) for a working visit and to accompany Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from 25 until September 29.
His arrival at Pentagon was received by Defence Secretary, James Norman Mattis.
In the bilateral meeting with James Norman at Pentagon, Washington DC today, Mohamad Sabu had talked on the peacefulness of the South China Sea and stressed that Malaysia will continue to be a neutral country.
“The one hour meeting also dealt on the issues of the ISIS’s (terrorists) threats and how to address the terrorism ideology,” said a statement from the Ministry of Defence today.
The statement added, Malaysia also raised the issue of cleansing the ethnic group Rohingya to the attention of USA. Malaysia hoped the big power would intervene immediately as it was not a domestic issue of Myanmar but had become a universal humanitarian issue.
“Malaysia’s opinion was that if Rohingya issue was not addressed immediately then it was feared what had happened in Palestine would be repeated where Palestinians were killed and their land seized. This situation would lead to the potential growth of the Daesh ideology,” said Mohamad Sabu in the statement.
Earlier , the Ministry of Defence in its statement said, Mohamad Sabu was scheduled for a working visit in New York to attend the High Level Meeting related to Action for Peacekeeping .
Mohamad Sabu’s visit to Wahington DC was a follow-up after his meeting with the US Defence Secretary in Singapore, June 2018.
The objective of the visit is to continue the meeting related to the cooperation in defence between the two countries besides maintaining the bilateral relationship between Malaysia and USA.
Mohamad Sabu was accompanied by the Chief of Armed Forces, General Tan Sri Zulkifli Zainal Abidin and officials of the Ministry of Defence. _Malaysia World News
