The Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry (NRES) has disputed reports claiming that Malaysia has ceded thousands of hectares of territory as “compensation” for three villages in Pulau Sebatik, along the Sabah-Kalimantan border.

In a statement today, its minister Arthur Joseph Kurup said the negotiations to survey and mark the borders between the two countries were done harmoniously based on pre-existing agreements, and not on “reciprocity, compensation, or profit-and-loss”.