Singapore on Tuesday disputed the veracity of a set of WikiLeaks documents relating to U.S. diplomatic cables on the city-state's relations with its neighbour Malaysia.
Taking exception to the remarks attributed to Singapore officials in those documents, which were summarised in an Australian newspaper on Sunday, Malaysia gave the city-state a protest note on Tuesday. The full text of the relevant set of documents was not put on the official website of WikiLeaks.
Confirming Malaysia's “protest note regarding press reports of U.S. Embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks”, Singapore said its Foreign Minister, George Yeo, telephoned his Malaysian counterpart, Anifah Aman, to “clarify [the city-state's] policy of not commenting on leaks.”
However, “on the specific complaints raised by the Malaysians”, Singapore's Foreign Ministry said: “What [its] officials were alleged by WikiLeaks to have said did not tally with our own records. One purported meeting [between Singapore and U.S. officials] did not even take place.”
Malaysia and its leaders were portrayed in poor light in the remarks attributed to Singapore officials in the news report on the meetings between them and their U.S. counterparts in 2008 and 2009.