KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — Malaysia must make plain its rejection of the Philippines’ continued claim on Sabah, a federal lawmaker said today after the incoming president of the country announced new ambitions on the Borneo state.

Penampang MP Darell Leiking said the claim by incoming president Rodrigo Duterte was encouraged by Malaysia’s “weak” position on such matters, adding that a strong message was necessary to dissuade such ambitions on the state.

“I ask Sabah and the federal government to immediately convene both the state and Parliament sitting to secure a total vote by all elected state assemblymen and parliamentarians to DEMAND the Philippines especially its government to drop and to stop the claim over Sabah once and for all and reassert Sabah’s position as an equal partner of the Federation of Malaysia,” he said in a statement here today.

Leiking said the failure to unequivocally resolve the issue made the claim on Sabah a populist position for Philippine lawmakers, which in turn fuelled the sentiment in the neighbouring country.

The PKR vice president added that such claims were also behind the 2013 invasion of Lahad Datu, in which forces of the self-styled Sulu sultan launched an incursion into Sabah in a bid to press his claimed ownership of the state.

Leiking pointed out that Putrajaya said in Parliament that it still made cess payments for Sabah to Philippine claimants, saying this encouraged such claims on the state by foreign powers.

Those who invaded Sabah in 2013 have also not been punished either here or in the Philippines, he added.

“It is extremely disheartening to see our own government officials playing dining and usual diplomacy with those in the corridors of powers in the Philippine who have repeatedly claimed Sabah unrepentantly and at their whims and fancies,” he said.

Several Philippine dailies yesterday reported Duterte telling a news conference in Davao City that his administration recognises Sabah as Sulu sultanate territory that is being claimed by the Kiram clan behind the 2013 invasion.

Sabah was formerly called North Borneo by the colonial British. Together with Sarawak, Singapore and Malaya, it formed the federation of Malaysia in 1963, and to which it remains a member today.

Malaysia still pays an annual stipend of RM5,300, a rate that was paid by the British North Borneo Company since 1903 for the “lease”.

The last sultan of Sulu officially recognised by the Philippine government was Mahakuttah Kiram, who died in 1986.