Kualalumpur
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday said he would not retract his criticism of New Delhi’s actions in occupied Kashmir despite Indian traders calling for an unprecedented boycott of Malaysian palm oil.
The impasse could exacerbate what Mahathir described as a trade war between the world’s second biggest producer and exporter of the commodity and its biggest buyer so far this year.
India’s top vegetable oil trade body on Monday asked its members to stop buying Malaysian palm oil after Mahathir said at the UN General Assembly last month that India had “invaded and occupied” Kashmir. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on August 5 stripped occupied Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status and imposed a curfew and a communications blackout. “We speak our minds, and we don’t retract or change,” Mahathir told reporters outside parliament.— Reuters
