In welcoming the government's move to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the foreign exchange losses scandal, opposition leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, however, stressed that a similar commission must be formed to look into 1MDB.

"Setting-up an RCI on 1MDB is important to show that the forex scandal RCI is not a selective political move or the government's desperate attempt at diverting attention from the United States Department of Justice's (DOJ) latest allegations on 1MDB.

"So on the same principle of public accountability, I am calling for an RCI to investigate the allegations by the DOJ,” she told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.

Yesterday, the government announced that the cabinet agreed for an RCI to be formed to investigate the forex losses amounting to billions of ringgit suffered by Bank Negara in the 1980s when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was prime minister.

The government also claimed that a task force, which looked into the scandal, had found elements of a cover-up.

Meanwhile, Wan Azizah said an emergency meeting would be convened at the opposition leader's office in Parliament on June 28 to discuss the DOJ's allegations.

The DOJ in its third and latest filing last week, put the allegedly misappropriated figure at US$4.5 billion and is seeking to seize US$1.7 billion in assets purportedly acquired using funds stolen from 1MDB.

Asked on a perception that the forex RCI is politically motivated, Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) information chief Khalid Samad questioned the timing.

"It is politically motivated. If Mahathir is not with the opposition today, maybe this issue will be quiet.

"The move now is purely academic. What's the purpose? It will not change history," he told the same press conference.

In a recent interview with Channel News Asia, Mahathir claimed he was not involved in the forex scandal and pointed out that a probe carried out then had cleared him.