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Hill Thanks Malaysia for Help
Australia thanked Malaysia today for letting it use the country as a hub for some of its military relief efforts in Indonesia, underlining increasingly warm relations between the two nations.
Visiting Defence Minister Robert Hill said after a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak that Malaysia had given Australia permission to use Butterworth in northern Penang state as a staging post for airborne aid to Indonesia's neighbouring tsunami-devastated Aceh province.
"I called on (Najib) to thank him for the Malaysian support for our efforts, and say to him how proud I am that a country such as Malaysia, Australia and so many other countries helped the Indonesians," Mr Hill was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.
"The Malaysian government has been helpful to us in terms of our contribution in Aceh in allowing us to hub some of our aid through Butterworth.
"It means we can bring our C-138 aircraft to Butterworth where they can be properly maintained. We can fly to Butterworth heavy loads of humanitarian support and equipment and move them out," Mr Hill said after a 40-minute discussion with Mr Najib, who is also defence minister.
Mr Hill's visit and the cooperation over relief for Indonesia are the latest signs of a thaw in relations since the retirement in late 2003 of premier Mahathir Mohamad. He scorned Australia as an outpost of the West unfit for acceptance as a truly Asian nation.
Mahathir's successor, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has taken a more conciliatory approach and is expected to make an official visit to Australia this year - the first such trip by a Malaysian prime minister in 20 years.
Mr Hill arrived in Malaysia from Indonesia - another country with which Canberra has had a tetchy relationship - where he said the authorities were delighted and grateful that Australian troops were in Aceh to help the relief effort.
Kuala Lumpur 18/01/2005
