MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday welcomed Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in Malacañang, as the two leaders sought to reaffirm ties shadowed by a decades-long dispute over Sabah.
Mahathir is in the Philippines for a 2-day official visit upon Duterte’s invitation. The two leaders last met in July 2018 in Malaysia, where they further strengthened defense and security cooperation at the bilateral and regional level.
This will be Mahathir’s first official visit to the country since he returned as Malaysia’s prime minister in May 2018, after a stunning election comeback in which he defeated the coalition that has ruled the nation for 6 decades since its independence from Britain.
In his previous stint as prime minister, Mahathir, now 93, undertook official visits to the Philippines in 1987 and 1994, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.
Mahathir was known for his strong arm, sometimes pugnacious style of rule intolerant of dissent from 1981 to 2003, but also for transforming his Southeast Asian country from a sleepy backwater into a modern industrialized nation. (Reuters)
