Malaysia, Obama Vow no Safe Haven for Daesh

Arab News

21 November 2015

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and US President Barack Obama vowed on Saturday to fight the “evil” and “hateful” ideology unleashed by the Daeshgroup, whose self-claimed attacks recently in France, Lebanon and Egypt have cast a grim shadow over an Asian summit.

“We will not allow these killers to have a safe haven,” Obama said at a business conference on the sidelines of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders that Najib opened earlier. The two leaders will attend a larger summit of 18 Asia-Pacific countries on Sunday.

The summit is taking place against the backdrop of the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt, a suicide bombing in Beirut, a series of attacks in Paris and the slaying this week of a Malaysian hostage by militants in the southern Philippines. Najib said he was going to begin his speech by talking about the achievements of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which he is the current chairman.

… Envisaged in 2002, work on the community began in 2007, and it’s already delivering benefits to the region. Najib listed them in his speech:

Tariffs on trade in the region have been reduced to zero, or near zero, helping bring down prices of goods;
Unemployment is down to 3.3 percent;
Citizens enjoy visa-free travel through nine out of 10 countries;
Citizens are allowed to work in other countries in the region in eight major sectors, including tourism.

… Tan See Seng, a professor of international relations at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said it is true that there are no tariffs at the borders. “But once you enter … you may have to grease the palms of some people in certain ASEAN countries to proceed. These ‘behind the border’ barriers … are a key impediment slowing down the process of integration,” he said.

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