KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The United States Saturday thanked Malaysia for opening its airspace and three airports to foreign flights carrying relief aid for the Dec. 26 earthquake andtsunami survivors in Indonesia's Aceh province.

    Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, James A. Kelly, expressed Washington's appreciation to Kuala Lumpur at a press conference held at the residence of US ambassador to Malaysia Christopher Lafleur.

    Kelly said he was very impressed with Malaysia's willingness tohelp Indonesia, the country hardest-hit by the twin disasters withmore than 100,000 deaths.

    "On behalf of the US government I would like to thank the Malaysian government for opening the facilities in Subang and Langkawi for relief operations," he said.

    The United States, Australia, Britain and Japan have been givenpermission to use Malaysia's airspace as well as the airports at Subang, Butterworth and Langkawi for their relief efforts.

    Kelly also noted that Malaysia had joined other nations in providing medical assistance and aid to Aceh despite having suffered considerable damage from the killer waves itself.

    Kelly toured the affected areas in Aceh prior to coming to Malaysia.

    "This (devastation) is entirely unprecedented...and I have never seen such a degree of cooperation (among countries) like what is going on now," he said.

    Replying to a question, Kelly said he did not think radical Islamic groups in Indonesia would threaten the security of US personnel currently helping and being involved in the relief operation in Indonesia.

    "I hope not...I don't think so. (But) we cannot completely exclude the possibility of people doing this," he said.

    "This is a time to help human beings in distress. Naturally Indonesia is (always) alert to things like that," he said.

    Kelly was also asked to comment whether America's help for Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, would change the feelings of Muslims towards Washington which was blamed for the current carnage in Iraq.

    "I don't know whether there is a change or not...this is an operation to help people...to meet human problems," he said.

    On Sunday, he is scheduled to visit Kedah, one of the tsunami-hit states in Malaysia, and meet Malaysian officials on Monday. Enditem