KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 12 – Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi commended the new government’s move to set up a special task force to study appropriate options in the Pulau Batu Putih as justified.

The party president and BN chairman said the possibility of legal action against the negligent party for not continuing the application for review and interpretation of the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), is reasonable. Malaysians are still wondering why the 22-month government suddenly decided not to continue the review proceedings at the ICJ.

“The chronology of this issue is easy to understand. It is true that the ICJ in 2008 ruled that Pulau Batu Putih (Pedra Branca) is a sovereign territory of Singapore, but in 2017 Malaysia has new evidence to obtain the sovereignty of the island and a hearing date for review is set for June 2018,” he said in a FB posting.

He said it was clear that Malaysia had a chance to regain Pulau Batu Putih.

“However, the effort was ‘abandoned’ after the 22-month government won the 14th General Election (GE-14). If investigation by the special task force finds that negligence had took place, it was clearly a betrayal of the country,” the Bagan Datuk MP said.

It was reported that in a statement last Saturday, the Cabinet agreed that a special task force be set up to review the law on the Pulau Batu Puteh case.

The establishment of the special task force will be chaired by the former Attorney-General, Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali to conduct a comprehensive study, research and recommend appropriate options by seeking views from international legal experts.

In 2018, the Pakatan Harapan (PH)-led government under the leadership of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad withdrew an application to review the ICJ’s decision before the case was scheduled to be heard on June 11, 2018.