International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz claimed that she did not speak a word to former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad when she hugged him yesterday.

According to her, the two of them hugged without "saying anything".

A teary-eyed Rafidah had embraced the former premier when he attended the Merdeka day celebrations in Putrajaya yesterday.

Photographs of the hug made it to the front-pages of almost all the major dailies, leading many to wonder if the duo have called a truce.

Rafidah and her former boss had recently locked horns over the Approved Permits (AP) issue, which boiled to the point of some calling on the minister to resign.

"We just hugged (each other), that's it. Nothing was said. Well, there was no need to say anything at all," she was quoted as saying in a Bernama report.

Yesterday's meeting was Rafidah's first with Mahathir, who is now Proton adviser, since their flare-up.

Felt very close

On why she had cried, the minister said she felt very close to Mahathir and such emotions were normal.

"Why did I cry? Well, I told you ... I always felt myself very close to Tun (Mahathir).

"It's like that when you feel close to someone. You should understand, you (are) all human beings. There is no need to explain," she added.

Asked what Mahathir told her, she said the former prime minister kept saying "it's okay, it's okay, it's okay".

Rafidah said her meeting with Mahathir was the first in a long time because the latter had been abroad.

She said she would meet Mahathir again in Penang next week because she had asked him and he had said he would be there then.

Asked whether she felt relieved now, Rafidah said: "No. You know, you meet for the first time. I have not met him actually. He had been overseas," she said.

She also that there was no misunderstanding between the two of them, whose working relationship spanned for more than two decades.

"No...(mis)understanding...nothing. Come on, you all must see beyond all these", she told reporters.

Mahathir had claimed that the distribution of APs was hurting Proton's market. He also questioned why certain individuals were given so many of these permits.