PUTRAJAYA - Despite a series of racially motivated attacks on Indian students in the country, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has assured foreigners that his country is a safe place to study.

Referring to the recent attacks or “curry bashings”, he said, “In every city in the world, unfortunately, there are going to be acts of violence from time to time.”

The Star Online quoted him, as claiming that he was not playing down the issue, and “one act of violence is one too many; one death is one too many,” and added that his government welcomed foreign students and took their security “very seriously”.

Rudd, who was here on Monday for a brief stopover en route to Europe, met Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to discuss bilateral issues.

“The fact that I’ve been here twice in 12 months, with no particular crisis to deal with or problem to solve, shows we take our friendship with Malaysia very seriously,” he said.

Later, noting down that there are about 20,000 Malaysian students in Australia, Rudd said Australia and Malaysia would work towards expanding areas in higher education and training.

Rudd spoke of how Australia was “a nation of immigrants” where a large number of its people came from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

“Apart from anything else, you have taught us how to eat well,” the Mandarin-speaking Rudd quipped. His Mandarin has been touted as even better than one Taiwanese minister’s.

Thanks to the immigration influence, Rudd said Australia now had “some decent food”, such as Malaysian satay, Indonesia’s nasi goreng (fried rice) and the best curries from south Asia, besides Japanese and Chinese food.

“We are multi-cultural and we are proud over it. We are not a perfect society but we are completely comfortable with our future in the region,” he said. (ANI)