PUTRAJAYA: The government will leave it to Parliament to decide how the Batu Puteh issue should be handled, says the Prime Minister.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that a paper would be presented in Parliament so that lawmakers could have the full information on this issue before coming to a decision.
“This issue has not seen an ending. The loss of a region for any country is a big and serious problem,” he said after chairing the weekly Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (Feb 8).
During his recent meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Anwar said that he had assured the former that the issue would not affect good relations between Malaysia and the island republic.
However, the act of violating the process of not appealing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision must be questioned.
In December last year, the Attorney General had been instructed to review matters pertaining to Malaysia's claim over Batu Puteh.
In 2008, ICJ ruled that Pedra Branca (Batu Puteh) belonged to Singapore, while the sovereignty over the nearby Middle Rocks (Batuan Tengah) was awarded to Malaysia.
Malaysia government filed an application in 2017 for a review of ICJ’s decision to award jurisdiction over Batu Puteh to Singapore.
In 2018, the Pakatan Harapan government withdrew the application before the case was heard in June that year.
