KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s recent visit to France helped strengthen bilateral relations between the two nations, said Foreign Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan.
He said the leaders of both countries managed to hold discussions on several matters during the Prime Minister’s brief stopover in France en route to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to attend the BRICS Summit earlier this month.
“It is inaccurate to say that the Prime Minister’s visit was not meaningful.
“It was indeed meaningful, especially because the Prime Minister held two-way talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Both leaders discussed several issues, including bilateral ties. The same applied to the Prime Minister’s stopover in Italy,” Mohamad said in the Dewan Rakyat on Monday (July 21), responding to a supplementary question from Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal (PN-Machang).
Wan Ahmad Fayhsal had questioned why Anwar was not accorded full state honours during his visit to France, unlike former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1997, former Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2018, and Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto, who was invited to attend the Bastille Day celebrations.
He described Anwar’s visit as a “missed opportunity,” particularly with Malaysia currently chairing Asean.
Mohamad clarified that Anwar’s stopover in France was not an official visit.
“It was not an official visit — that would have been an entirely different matter.
“If it had been official, we would have flown directly to the country rather than making a stopover,” he said.
He added that the Prime Minister had accepted invitations from both France and Italy to stop over and was accorded a high level of respect during the visits, including the inspection of a guard of honour.
Earlier, Mohamad emphasised the importance of Asean engaging with countries within the Indo-Pacific region.
“The Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific is a framework agreed upon by all Asean members.
“Asean cannot afford to be excluded from participating in such frameworks and developments in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
He pointed out that other regional frameworks, such as AUKUS and the Quad, also promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.
AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership involving Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, while the Quad comprises India, Australia, Japan and the United States.
Mohamad said the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific framework is designed to ensure Asean remains free, peaceful and neutral.
Regarding the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), he noted that 57 countries have signed the agreement, with Uruguay and Algeria being the latest signatories.
The TAC, originally drafted in 1976, is a peace treaty initially signed by Asean member states.
