KUALA LUMPUR Mainly Muslim Malaysia has made it clear to the United States that it objects to being linked to terrorism, Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said Thursday.

"I stressed in my meeting with (US Vice President Dick) Cheney that we don't like this profiling," Abdullah told an airport news conference on his return from a visit to Washington.

"We don't like to be branded as a terrorist state or as people with links with terrorists."

Reports that some Malaysians had contact with terror groups abroad should not be used to label the country a terrorist nation because the same situation existed in the US and elsewhere, he said.