Singapore Says Spying Reports Won't Hurt Ties With its Neighbors

Singapore's relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia shouldn't be damaged by recent spying allegations, Foreign Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said.

'The Indonesians and Malaysians know we won't do anything to harm their interests,' Shanmugam said at an event today in Singapore. 'Nevertheless, there's such a thing as domestic politics in all three countries.'

Malaysia summoned Singapore's high commissioner earlier this week and said it was 'extremely concerned' about claims of spying by the city state. Indonesia and Malaysia have been key targets for Australian and U.S. intelligence cooperation since the 1970s, facilitated in part by Singapore, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Nov. 25, citing documents leaked by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

'When it comes to intelligence, we don't come up and confirm or deny it,' Shanmugam said. 'You cannot be, on intelligence matters, come out and say that's true, that's untrue, this is 5 percent true, that's 95 percent false.'

The spying allegations come as ties between Singapore and Malaysia have improved after half a century of tensions over issues such as water supply and ownership of a railway station, with the two countries cooperating on real estate projects on both sides of the border and seeking to improve transport links. Malaysia is a party alongside Singapore and the U.S. to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.

Ambassador Withdrawn

In Australia, tensions with Indonesia recently reached the highest point in 14 years after Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono halted cooperation on asylum seekers and military operations and withdrew his ambassador from Canberra in response to phone tapping claims.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Nov. 27 Australia wants to create a 'security round table' with Indonesia as its neighbor pledged to assign a senior official for talks, a sign that those tensions are easing.

Yudhoyono's mobile phone activity was tracked for 15 days in August 2009, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. said on its website Nov. 18, citing documents leaked by Snowden. At least once, intelligence agencies tried to listen to a conversation though the call lasted less than a minute and couldn't be tapped, it said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jasmine Ng in Singapore at jng299@bloomberg.net; Andrea Tan in Singapore at atan17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net

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