Former Indonesian trade minister Muhammad Lutfi’s remarks followed Muar MP Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s call in the Dewan Rakyat last week for Malaysia to rally Asean countries to exert diplomatic and financial pressure on Indonesia over the recurring transboundary haze.PETALING JAYA: Former Indonesian trade minister Muhammad Lutfi has hit back at Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman over the Muar MP’s call to treat Indonesia as an "outcast" in Asean over the recurring transboundary haze.
Lutfi said the haze was not an opportunity for political grandstanding, and that Indonesian firefighters had died battling the blazes while hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were breathing in the smoke.
He argued that Malaysian companies operating plantations in Indonesia must also be held responsible for the crisis, claiming Malaysian plantation groups controlled up to 3.4 million hectares of land in the country while some financed their operations through Malaysian banks.
