Time to start afresh with Singapore ?

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s hardball way and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s golf diplomacy when dealing with Singapore led nowhere in efforts to resolve outstanding bilateral issues. How will Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak deal with the Singaporeans to get things moving?
PRIME Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak arrives in Singapore today for a two-day visit that has been upgraded by his host from a working visit to an official one.
That means instead of just meeting his counterpart Lee Hsien Loong for a full delegation meeting, the Prime Minister will be accorded a welcoming ceremony and also an audience with Singapore President S.R. Nathan at the Istana.
The meeting with Lee is the second in the last six weeks. They had lunch in Pattaya last month during the East Asian Summit, which ended abruptly following anti-government protests in Thailand.
Najib, in his own words, was happy with the lunch with Lee as they learnt more about each other. They promised that they should work closely.
Bilateral relations with Singapore during Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s era hit a rough patch with several outstanding issues, namely the price of water sold to Singapore, the use of Malaysian airspace by the Singapore air force, the development of KTM Bhd land in Singapore, the proposed Johor-Singapore bridge and the withdrawal of Central Provident Fund contributions by Malaysians employed in Singapore.
When Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took over in October 2003, he met then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and urged both sides to tackle the issues that were easier to resolve first.
Abdullah explained the approach by using the metaphor of “plucking the ripe fruit first”, whereby both sides should pluck the low-hanging fruits first and then move on to the higher ones on the tree.
He subsequently urged both sides to explore new approaches and “to think out of the box” to avoid the deadlock that had besieged previous bilateral negotiations.
Lee came to power in August 2004 but Goh continued to look after outstanding bilateral issues. Subsequent meetings were held and came to naught.
Leaders, as expected, will always issue positive remarks of how bilateral relations should move forward and recognise the need to work together when they meet.
Najib will have to build up his relationship wit h Lee first and vice-versa before the two leaders can expect to see things moving.
Words must be followed up with action. Otherwise, it would end up like the current situation, especially with outstanding issues, where things have come to a standstill.
Singapore, as during past negotiations, will say it will agree on certain things but would attach conditions to them. Malaysia would have to meet those conditions, otherwise it would be no go.
There has been no meeting between Malaysian and Singaporean officials since Abdullah announced he was stepping down. Singapore could have be en waiting for the new leader to come in before restarting talks.
There is another thing Malaysia must bear in mind.
Over the years, statements on issues involving Kuala Lumpur from across the Causeway – from the Prime Minister right down to Cabinet ministers – have always been coordinated.
This is unlike Malaysia where everybody, especially politicians for reasons best known to themselves, would jump in to give their comments, which most of the time do not reflect the thinking of the Prime Minister.
This is an area where the Singaporeans co uld take advantag e of an d use against Malaysia during negotiations.
Abdullah managed to keep bilateral relations with Singapore in the last five years cool. Though no progress was made on the outstanding issues, things were a lot calmer.
Perhaps it is a good time for Najib to start afresh with Singapore and get things moving, finally.

tunku : the key word here is what is our right is our right.we should not bow to singapore.singapore has never been kind to malaysia since day one.we have tried so many ways with them but failed(we are dealing with kiasus).we need to be kiasu in dealing with kiasu.
pak lah managed to keep things cool with singapore but to their advantage not us.we were always on the losing side.he plucked the fruits and gave it away for free to singapore and in return we gets nothing.
we hope najib to be bold with them.it should be win win situation for both.we give you fruits, you give us fruits too.