IMO calls for cooperation in Malacca Strait

The IMO stressed the need for closer cooperation to enhance security in the Malacca and Singapore Straits. Secretary General, Efthimios Mitropoulus, made the appeal while opening the two-day meeting on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore: Enhancing Safety, Security and Environmental Protection.

He said that the meeting was expected to provide a unique opportunity for the littoral states, strait users and all other stake holders to work together to produce an outcome conducive to building confidence in any effort undertaken jointly to enhance safety of navigation, environmental protection and overall security in the straits.

The secretary general said that the littoral countries, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore had a principal role in securing the straits. Mitropoulus said that the safety and security in straits used for international navigation and, in general, in other shipping lanes of strategic importance and significance are such that they go far beyond the immediate concern of the shipping industry alone and the need, in certain areas, for genuine progress to be made, and made without delay, carries a global imperative.

On the same occasion, Director General of Malaysian Marine Department Raja Datuk Malik Saripulazan Raja Kamaruzaman said that he very much welcomed the joint Eye-in-the-Sky initiative and the reported announcement that the nearest vessels of enforcement agencies from the straits littoral states would be cleared to conduct hot pursuit up to five miles into neighboring territorial waters. He said Malaysia commitment as a littoral state of the Malacca Strait was fundamentally anchored in facilitating the use of the strait as an international maritime route.