Australian PM to visit Indonesia early next year

Australian PM to visit Indonesia early next year

Agence France-Presse Canberra

Australia's recently re-elected Prime Minister John Howard has announced plans to visit Indonesia again early in the new year for talks focusing on asylum seekers.

Howard told an informal gathering of journalists at his annual press gallery Christmas party late on Monday that he hoped to go in February or March, as a matter of priority.

However, his staff said on Tuesday that no dates had yet been confirmed for the visit.

During a visit to Canberra last week, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda discussed with Australian ministers the problem for both countries of illegal immigration.

He voiced concern about Australia's so-called Pacific solution by which illegal immigrants have been sent to Pacific nations such as Nauru and Papua New Guinea where their claims for asylum are being processed.

Wirayuda also secured Australian agreement to co-host with Jakarta a regional conference on illegal migration in February.

Howard, who traveled to Indonesia in August, was the first world leader to visit its new President Megawati Soekarnoputri.

However, relations were strained within a month when Howard demanded that the Norwegian freighter Tampa take 433 asylum seekers it had rescued from a sinking ferry in the Indian Ocean back to Indonesia where they began their voyage.

Megawati refused to return Howard's calls, but she wrote to him following his government third election win last month to congratulate him on his victory and urge stronger ties between the two countries.