PRIME MINISTER ABBOTT:
Ladies and gentleman, it is a real honour for me to be here again for the second time in four days to thank all of the personnel from many countries for the work that is being done in searching for and recovering ill-fated flight MH370.
This is a remarkable international cooperation – a truly remarkable international cooperation.
It’s great to be here with my friend and colleague Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, but it’s really good to be here with the service personnel of Australia, of Malaysia, of China, of Japan, of Korea, of the United States and of New Zealand.
To have the military forces of so many countries working together for our common humanity shows what we can do. It shows what we can do and if anyone would ever be unhappy or distraught about the prospects for international peace and harmony this operation is a marvellous antidote to pessimism – a marvellous antidote to pessimism.
So thank you for your commitment. Thank you for professionalism. Thank you for your idealism.
I am confident that everything that possibly can be done to find this aircraft will be done. We cannot be certain of success, but we can be certain of the professionalism and the effort that will be brought to the task.
Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER NAJIB:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Ministers, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to be here at the Royal Australian Air Force Base in Pearce to personally thank everyone involved in this gigantean task to find missing MH370.
When Prime Minister Tony Abbott called me a few days ago I was both relieved and thankful that Australia is willing to be very forthcoming to step up and offer their assistance to locate the missing aircraft. As the saying goes – a friend in need is a friend indeed. So Australia has proven to be a very reliable and a true friend to Malaysia. So thank you very much Prime Minister Abbott.
I am also delighted that Prime Minister Abbott has appointed Air Marshal Angus Houston, whom I know personally – a man of great experience and skill – and I’m confident that he’s providing the true professional leadership of this Joint Action Coordination Centre which requires true coordination among so many personnel from many countries, as well as other agencies involved in this search operation.
I would also like to thank all the countries involved. It was a very heart-warming experience to be introduced to the leaders of the various countries – from China, from the United States, from New Zealand, from Japan from the Republic of Korea, from New Zealand and of course from both Australia and Malaysia.
Indeed this is probably the largest mission put together by so many countries to locate an aircraft and your commitment is very, very much appreciated by Malaysia and by the world.
We owe it to the grieving families to give them comfort and closure to this rather tragic event and the world expects us to do our level best and I’m very confident that you will indeed show what we can do together as a group of nations that we want to find answers. We want to provide comfort to the families and we will not rest until answers are indeed found.
I’m very confident with the level of professionalism shown as alluded to by Prime Minister Abbott that indeed in due time we will provide a closure to this event, or this tragedy.
So once again, thank you very much to all of you. I know it is a daunting task to go out there in very inclement weather, in very challenging circumstances. Malaysia is indeed grateful for your courage and for your commitment.
And above all, I’d like to thank Prime Minister Abbott once again and the Australian Government for your steadfast commitment to the search mission and together let us work hand-in-hand to provide answers in what is probably the biggest mystery in aviation history thus far.
Thank you once again.
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