Malaysia wants to rope in Thailand and Brunei into security pacts, says Hisham

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is working towards including Brunei and Thailand into its two trilateral cooperation agreements (TCA) with other countries to protect the Sulu Sea as well as the Malacca Straits, says Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein.

The Senior Minister said he was proud of the efforts to revive the TCA between Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia to safeguard the Sulu Sea.

"If the Brunei Sultan is pleased with our suggestion, this trilateral arrangement could change to a quadrilateral.

"Following discussions with my counterparts - Prabowo Subianto from Indonesia and Delfin Lorenzana of the Philippines - we feel it is time to add Brunei," he told reporters after the closing ceremony of the Defence Services Asia (DSA) Exhibition & Conference 2022 and National Security (Natsec) Asia 2022 on Thursday (March 31).

Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, said TCA discussions between Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia were looking at adding Thailand as well.

"As far as my discussions with Prabowo and Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, it is now up to us to convince the Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha.

"This is so that we can have a quartet to secure the Malacca Straits," he said.

Hishammuddin said in the bilateral meeting with Indonesia, both countries had agreed to convene the Malindo General Border Committee meeting in July 2022 to discuss the progress of joint border posts.

"Malaysia will also study the Bandung model to develop our own domestic defence industry.

"The bilateral meeting with Brunei saw me and my counterpart agreeing to further explore defence cooperation particularly in joint exercises on terrorism," he said, adding that they would also explore the possibility of increasing the number of Royal Brunei Armed Forces personnel under Malaysia's United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil).