Singapore – Singapore on Tuesday broke its silence on a tirade by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid but avoided commenting on his threat to cut off the island-state's water supply.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's office issued a rebuttal of Wahid's comments to Indonesian journalists at the end of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) forum in Singapore on Saturday.
However, there was no direct reply to Wahid's comments that Indonesia should cooperate with Malaysia to choke Singapore's water supply, which is being piped in from Johor. Nor did the government reply to scathing remarks made about Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. And, the Indonesian president's comments that Singapore was only interested in profit for entering into a bundle of free trade pacts outside of ASEAN were not addressed.
On Wahid's complaint that his suggestion to admit East Timor and Papua New Guinea into ASEAN was ignored, Goh's office said the Indonesian president never tabled his proposal at the summit itself.
Wahid only recounted his encounter with Senior Minister Lee outside the ASEAN meeting during which Singapore's elder statesman reportedly told him that East Timor and Papua New Guinea would burden ASEAN.
Had Wahid tabled his proposal, "ASEAN practice requires a consensus on the admission of new members," Goh's office said in a statement. "It is not a matter that can be decided by one or two countries," it said.
Wahid had also complained that Goh never mentioned Indonesia as a host to planned ASEAN trade fairs and said there was no need to follow a decision during the summit to master the English language in order to keep pace with developments in information technology. He said it was Singapore who made the suggestion on the use of the English language.
But Goh's office said the decision taken at the summit was to rotate hosting of the trade fairs among ASEAN capitals and the advice to master English was made by Malaysian Prime Minster Mahathir Mohamad, not by the host, the statement said.
On Wahid's accusation that the summit ignored the southern part of ASEAN and focused more on the Mekong river basin, Goh's office said it was the consensus among the leaders that integrating Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar was crucial to ASEAN's consolidation. "The ASEAN leaders and also the leaders from China, Japan and Korea focused on projects in the Mekong Basin countries," the statement said.
It was the Singapore prime minister who proposed that the ASEAN summit in Brunei next year should discuss help to ASEAN's eastern regions comprising of the Philippines, Kalimantan, East Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesian officials, politicians and analysts have played down Wahid's remarks.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.