He told the Dewan Rakyat today that Malaysia maintains balanced defence ties with major powers and uses international exercises to strengthen its military expertise.

“As a neutral nation, Malaysia remains open to cooperation through bilateral and multilateral engagements.

“The collaboration (with Five Eyes) not only strengthens our personnel’s expertise but also provides an important platform to better understand and operate defence technology as most of our military assets are sourced from developed countries,” Bernama reported him as saying.

Adly was responding to Shafizan Kepli (GPS-Batang Lupar) on whether MDIO’s cooperation with Five Eyes militaries affects Malaysia’s neutrality, particularly its relations with major powers such as China.

The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance comprises Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and the US.

Adly said Malaysia practises selective cooperation within existing defence frameworks and in line with the National Defence White Paper as it aims to strengthen expertise sharing, enhance intelligence analysis capabilities and provide exposure to international best practices.

He said MDIO only participates in bilateral and multilateral exercises with Five Eyes countries hosted by the Malaysian armed forces.

This includes the Cobra Gold and Bersama Warrior exercises with the US; the Bersama Lima exercise with the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore; and the Indo-Pacific intelligence chiefs’ tabletop exercise.