SINGAPORE SAYS WIKILEAKS REPORT WILL NOT AFFECT COUNTRY TIES

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, Dec 13 (Bernama) -- Singapore said Monday the latest Wikileaks
reports that implicated its leaders and officials for making damaging remarks on
friendly nations would not affect the republic's ties with those countries.

"These relationships are built on a strong foundation of shared interests
and mutually beneficial cooperation in many areas," said a spokesman from the
Foreign Affairs Ministry.

"Singapore has long-standing, robust and positive relationships with all
countries in our region," the spokesman said, adding countries based
relationships on their own interests and "not hearsay or gossip".

The spokesman was responding to media queries on Australian press reports of
US Embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks Sunday.

The cables, recorded in 2008 and 2009, revealed damning statements made
about Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and India, by Singapore senior officials in
meetings with senior US officials.

"These press reports are based on American interpretations of confidential
conversations that did not provide the full context, and in some cases, were
from third party sources," the spokesman said.

"As a matter of principle, MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) does not
comment on leaks," he added.

When asked if he expected that subsequent WikiLeaks report would contain
critical comments about Singapore by other countries, the spokesman said:

"There are many thousands of leaked cables from US diplomatic missions all
around our region.

"I would be very surprised if Singapore were not the subject of at least
some of them. As I said earlier, MFA does not comment on leaks.

"Singapore takes leaks of confidential information very seriously and would
not tolerate them here," added the spokesman.
-- BERNAMA