Saifuddin who is due to visit the republic next month, said 'nothing concrete' had been decided at the moment on the water deal. — Picture by Mukhriz Hazim

KUALA LUMPUR, July 25 — Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah has given an assurance that Malaysia will honour its 1962 Water Agreement with Singapore, but said of greater priority for both nations right now is to renegotiate the High Speed Rail (HSR) project.

Saifuddin added that government officials will be discussing the latter issue next Tuesday, the Straits Times reported today.

“Water is like our nerve system. We honour our nearest neighbour. Malaysia and Singapore have always enjoyed that special relationship. The idea is how we go about to continue from where we have stopped in the negotiation,” he told the Singapore daily in an interview yesterday.

Saifuddin who is due to visit the republic next month, said “nothing concrete” had been decided at the moment on the water deal.

“What is immediate and urgent is to resolve the HSR story.

“We understand certain parts of the agreement will confine us to more or less agreeing to continue, but again, these are things that we want to negotiate. I believe that our Singapore counterpart will understand some of the difficulties the new government is faced with as far as this project is concerned,” he was quoted saying.

Last month, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said his administration could revisit the water deal, which he described as lopsided, and which triggered a knee-jerk reaction from Singapore though he added that the matter was not on the top of the Pakatan Harapan government’s agenda.

Singapore had urged Malaysia to fully comply with a water-sharing agreement struck in 1962.

Singapore was once part of Malaysia but separated acrimoniously in 1965, clouding diplomatic and economic dealings for years.

Ties were particularly frosty during Dr Mahathir’s previous tenure as prime minister between 1981 and 2003.

He had previously announced the cancellation of the HSR after determining that his administration inherited over RM1 trillion in liabilities from the defeated Barisan Nasional, and said he planned to develop some offshore rocks that were the subject of a territorial dispute with the southern neighbour.