U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday urged Malaysia to be transparent and follow the rule of law in dealing with the sodomy accusation against opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Hours later, Malaysian Foreign Minister Rais Yatim accused Washington of meddling in his country's domestic affairs and told U.S. officials to stop commenting on the Anwar case.
The two officials made their comments at separate news conferences in Singapore where they were attending a regional security meeting.
The war of words began earlier this month when a U.S. State Department spokesman made similar comments about Anwar, provoking a letter of complaint from Rais to Rice.
Anwar has rejected accusations of sodomy made by a male aide, saying they were part of a conspiracy to keep him from seizing power from Malaysia's ruling coalition. Government leaders have denied trying to frame Anwar.
On Thursday, Rice dismissed Malaysia's claim that the Anwar case is an internal affair.
"The United States doesn't recognize this very firm barrier that it is simply internal affairs when a case of this kind comes up, but we are going to continue to work with Malaysia," she told reporters.
"We want to see transparency and for rule of law to be completely followed here," she said. "We are always going to speak up on human rights cases, political cases."
In response, Rais said he met with Rice on the sidelines of the security conference and told her to "abstain from making untoward statements" that backed Anwar's claim of a political conspiracy.
"I emphatically said that was not the case," Rais told reporters, adding that Malaysia does not need any more statements from Rice's office.
"We have got an entrenched, recognized system of criminal law administration," he said.
He said Rice understood Malaysia's position and the issue wouldn't hurt bilateral ties. He said what Rice told him during their meeting is all that matters, and he is not concerned about her earlier comments to reporters.
Anwar, a former deputy prime minister, revived his political career in March when his three-party opposition alliance won 82 seats in the 222-member Parliament, the strongest performance ever for the opposition. He says he is close to toppling the government.
