A 33-year-old defence agreement between Singapore, Malaysia, Britain, Australia and New Zealand will be expanded to deal with terrorism and other "unconventional threats", the governments of the five nations said here Monday.
The restructured Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA), established in 1971 to boost Malaysia and Singapore's defence capabilities, will particularly focus on maritime security, Singapore Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said.
"The FPDA continues to recognise new challenges in the regional security environment and has the flexibility to adapt to them," Teo told a joint press conference with his counterparts from the other four nations after they held informal talks in Singapore.
"Hence the ministers at this meeting agreed the FPDA should incorporate non-conventional threat scenarios such as maritime security."
The issue of maritime security has assumed increasing importance in Southeast Asia amid growing concerns that the Malacca Strait, a narrow shipping channel vital to world commerce, is extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
About half the world's oil and a third of the globe's trade passes through the pirate-infested, 900-kilometre (550-mile) strait, which lies between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
Teo said the new focus on unconventional threats would begin as early as October, when the five nations hold their annual exercises in the South China Sea.
Asked if these exercises would include mock situations of dealing with hijacked boats in the Malacca Strait, Teo replied: "Yes, certainly."
"These are the kinds of exercises we would be conducting... there will be anti-hijack exercises, there will be surveillance exercises (and) exchange of knowledge on peacekeeping," he said.
The five-nation agreement has previously focused on traditional military threats, which Malaysian Defence Minister Najib Razak has said were fast receding in the region.
Najib stressed at Monday's media briefing that the expanded agreement would cater solely for "capacity building" and did not allow for direct, joint anti-terrorist activities.
"The whole essence of the FPDA is the emphasis on capacity building, on training exercises, on exchange of intelligence information, on building up our technical knowledge and expertise," Najib said.
"There is also a general understanding that, when it comes to terrorism, it is incumbent upon the country concerned to treat it as a domestic matter, particularly when it comes to the actual execution of the intended mission or operation."
Malaysia has vocally opposed any suggestion of foreign forces being used to help patrol the Malacca Strait after the United States floated a plan in April to have US forces help secure the waterway.
The United States has since said it did not intend to involve US troops in anti-terrorist operations in Southeast Asia's waters and that its maritime security initiative for the region focused mainly on intelligence sharing.
Although the five-nation arrangement is being expanded in its scope, Teo said there were no plans to increase its membership.
"Members expressed satisfaction with the current membership of FPDA. It's a group of like-minded countries which is able to carry out exercises, capacity building and activities," he said.
Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill and his New Zealand counterpart, Mark Burton, as well as Britain's minister of state for the armed forces, Adam Ingram, also attended the meeting.
They were all in Singapore for the three-day Asia Security Conference, a forum for 200 defence ministers, government officials and analysts, that ended on Sunday.
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