Despite a string of high-profile disagreements, there have been marked improvements in Malaysia's relationship with the United States since last year, US ambassador to the country Marie T Huhtala said in an exclusive interview with malaysiakini .

Huhtala said there was more communication between the leaders of both countries now compared to before the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the US.

"The US president and the Malaysian prime minister began directly speaking to each other after September and I won't deny that this had something to do with the Sept 11 attacks," she said.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his New Year's eve interview with Bernama said he wanted to improve relations with the US under its new president, George W Bush.

Malaysia's relationship with the US was strained during the tenure of former president Bill Clinton.

In 1999, then vice president Al Gore - who was attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Kuala Lumpur - had openly voiced out his support for the reformasi movement led by jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.

Human rights

Huhtala in the interview conducted last week said the US looked forward to improve its relationship with Malaysia in many areas such as investment, education and trade.

However, she stressed that the US remained concerned over human rights in Malaysia.

"In that regard, we are going to be following the court appeals of former deputy prime minister Anwar's cases," she said.

Asked about differences between the Bush and Clinton administrations, the ambassador said that "the actual change from one administration to another has a lot less impact on foreign affairs than people imagine."

"The fundamental goal of our foreign policies don't change greatly from one administration to another," she added.

On counter-terrorism efforts, Huhtala said her government felt that Malaysia had "done an outstanding job on cooperating with US although press articles had linked Malaysia together with other countries in an unfortunate way".

"We have had excellent cooperation on locating and freezing any assets that might be in your banks that belong to terrorists, and particularly cooperation with your police forces in tracking down terrorists."

Free speech

To another question, the ambassador said it was not her opinion that the anti-US stand taken by local media was reflective of the Malaysian government's policy.

"You cannot equate what you hear in the press with the policies of the government, not in any country except those who have rigid control of the press by the government, but we don't have that here," she said.

Huhtala said she did not assume that anti-US slant in the local media was done with the blessings of the government despite the close links between media owners and the ruling BN coalition.

"It is not our assessment that the papers here are mouthpieces for the government even though there are some ownership ties.

"I think there is a fair amount of freedom of speech in this country and that is to be encouraged," she said.