SEPANG (Oct 12): Malaysia will raise the issue of transboundary haze at an Asean foreign ministers’ meeting ahead of the bloc’s 49th Summit in Manila, the Philippines, next month to discuss more effective regional mechanisms to tackle the problem.

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said the haze issue required special attention as it was not covered by existing Asean mechanisms for natural disasters.

“We already have an Asean mechanism for natural disasters, but haze is not included or classified as a natural disaster.

“So, this will be one of the issues that I will personally raise at the meeting with my counterparts,” he told reporters after attending the departure of Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the Bunga Raya Complex here on Monday. 

On the latest efforts to extinguish fires in Indonesia, he said his counterpart, Arrmanatha Nasir, had informed him that extremely poor visibility in affected areas was hampering aerial firefighting operations.

“Indonesia has 34 aeroplanes and 34 helicopters, but they cannot take off because visibility is so poor that it is unsafe for any flights in the affected areas.

“However, they have deployed 60,000 people to work on the ground,” Mohamad said, adding that Indonesia also faced challenges because the fires were located deep inland, water supplies were limited and fires continued to smoulder in peatland areas.

He said cloud-seeding operations could not be carried out in Indonesia at present because suitable cumulonimbus clouds were absent.

Mohamad said Malaysia acknowledged that the Indonesian government was doing its utmost to extinguish the fires and sympathised with the situation facing the country.

However, he said Malaysia hoped its neighbour would take more effective measures as the current situation was adversely affecting the public.

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