Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan speaks at the 15th Asean Lecture on "Asean: Next 50" at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore on Tuesday. (Reuters photo)SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian countries must step up their fight against religious militancy taking root in their region, including in Myanmar's troubled Rakhine State, Singapore's foreign minister said on Tuesday. "Even our concern about the Rakhine state is also related to our anxiety that this becomes another sanctuary, another hotbed for extremism," he said. Asean includes Indonesia, which has the world's biggest Muslim population, mostly Muslim Malaysia and Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where a campaign of violence against members of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State has brought U.N. accusations of ethnic cleansing. Indonesian authorities last year disrupted a plot by militants to launch an attack in multi-ethnic Singapore.

Source: Bangkok Post December 05, 2017 19:41 UTC