Umno and its president Najib Abdul Razak should be respected for not bowing to pressure from superpower nations during the MH17 crisis, party vice-president Hishammuddin Hussein says.

He also said that Umno and Najib need not make apologies regarding the MH17 and MH370 crises.

“Our president should be respected for not bowing to (Russian) President Vladimir Putin and (US President) Barrack Obama in resolving the MH17 crisis.

“If Umno and our leaders are not respected, Malaysia wouldn’t have taken over the Asean leadership,” he said in his opening speech at the Umno supreme council roundtable meeting in Petaling Jaya today.

Malaysia is slated to helm Asean as its chairperson beginning next year.

Hishammuddin added that the party should also be respected for enabling the bodies of MH17 victims to be returned.

The MH17 and MH370 are both airline disasters which happened this year involving the loss of Malaysian Airlines aircrafts and all lives on board.

MH17 was shot down over a conflict zone in Ukraine, while MH370 is believed to have crashed into the Indian Ocean.

The MH370 has yet to be recovered.

Following the MH17 incident on July 17, both the Ukrainian government and separatist forces have blamed each other for the shooting, backed by their respective supporters – the US and Russia.

“If Umno is terrible, we would not have been able to face problems like MH17 and MH370. If it wasn’t for Najib, the remains of 43 Malaysians would not have been identified and perhaps still strewed over Ukrainian soil,” he added.

He ended his speech by saying, “We don’t claim to be great, but Umno is not that bad.”

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