Kuala Lumpur: . He said this to clarify and expand upon his reply to a question posed by Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin in Parliament on Oct 6 in respect of the ongoing arbitral dispute, known as the Sulu Claim, between the purported heirs to the defunct Sulu Sultanate and the Malaysian Government, in which he said the Sulu claim was a private claim and had nothing to do with the question of sovereignty.
“When I said that the Paris Award was a result of a private claim, it was a statement meaning that the claim was made by private individuals and not by the Government of the Philippines. “Further, when I stated that the Sulu Claim and the purported Paris Award were not related to the question of sovereignty, that statement was in the context of territorial sovereignty – that is whether or not there was a chance that Sabah could ever be handed over to the Philippines,” the minister reiterated.