Malaysia defends Australia, NZ inclusion in East Asia Summit

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec. 8 Kyodo

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar on Thursday defended the participation of Australia and New Zealand in the inaugural East Asia Summit, saying ASEAN has to look beyond geography and consider strategic alliances.

His comments come a day after former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whose idea of an East Asian grouping over a decade ago had inspired the summit, objected to the inclusion of Australia and New Zealand, saying they are neither East nor Asian.

He said Australia and New Zealand will render the summit ''quite useless'' in championing East Asian views and that the summit should be renamed the ''East Asia Australasian Summit.''

Syed Hamid, however, disagreed. ''We have two choices. Do we want to be exclusive or we want to be inclusive? Do we want to take into account the new strategic development in global affairs or we want to stay where we are?''

''So we decided, at ASEAN level, by consensus that we should be very inclusive. We should be open, we should not be exclusive. This is the guiding principle,'' he told reporters on the sidelines of the ASEAN senior officials meeting ahead of the annual ASEAN summit next week in Kuala Lumpur.

The first East Asia Summit will be held Wednesday, after the ASEAN Summit.

The EAS will bring together the 10 members of ASEAN, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.

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