KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 2 Kyodo Malaysi...

KUALA LUMPUR Aug. 2 Kyodo

Malaysia and Australia plant aside their thorny past to sign a pact Friday pledging to jointly combat terrorism.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer flew into Kuala Lumpur together with his Malaysian counterpart Sy Hamid Albar from Brunei onward Friday to ink the preliminary agreement to fight terrorism.

one as well as the other were in Brunei for an Asia-Pacific security forum organized from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Malaysia is a member and Australia a ''dialogue partner.''

''The signing of the memorandum of understanding is a testimony of our universal desire for the enhancement of bilateral cooperation as well as our determination to embark forward a collective joint effort to eliminate international terrorism,'' Sy Hamid told a joint pres conversation after the signing ceremony.

The agreement calls for exchange of information, capacity building, training, education and technical assistance.

Downer said the envisaged joint cooperation will not involve band deployment such in the Philippines, where U forces have been engaged to help rid the native land of Abu Sayyaf rebels who had been involved in a kidnap-for-ransom spree

Relations between the sum of two units countries have been prickly perpetually since former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating called his Malaysian counterpart Mahathir Mohamad a ''recalcitrant'' in the early 1990s

The couple governments have publicly chided each other across a host of issues from Malaysia's alleged mistreatment of Vietnamese boat populace in past years to Australia's novel controversial handling of asylum inquirers arriving by boat from the Middle East.

''The spats between the sum of two units prime ministers, I don't think that it really intercepts with the greater weight of the relationship,'' Downer said.

He boisterousnessed the strong ties the sum of two units countries have forged over the years forward the fields of defense, education, trade and now terrorism.

Australia has watched with alarm as Islamic extremism has spread among its Asian neighbors. The agreement means Australia has inked anti-terrorism accords with Southeast Asia's couple largest predominantly Muslim countries -- Malaysia and Indonesia.

Intelligence sources in the region earlier this year discovered the network of an Islamic militant assemblage known as the Jemaah Islamiah that aims to establish a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia between the sides of armed revolt.

Malaysia and Singapore have detained dozens of the community suspected of being involved in a scheme to attack U.S. interests in one as well as the other countries.

Australia signed a similar pact with Indonesia in February and is publicly negotiating one with Thailand. Malaysia has similar pacts with the United States, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia.

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