Megawati meets with Singapore leader

Megawati meets with Singapore leader

SINGAPORE (AFP): Indonesian Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri met with Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on
Tuesday at the start of a two-day working visit, officials said.

Goh welcomed Megawati, dressed in a checkered skirt and a
white blazer draped over a red shirt, at the Istana state complex
with a firm handshake, after which they proceeded to a meeting
room.

Goh and Megawati warmly greeted each other and were all smiles
as photographers took pictures.

A spokesman at the prime minister's office told AFP it was a
"private, four-eyes meeting" and no details will be released.

Megawati, who arrived earlier in the day, is also scheduled to
meet with influential Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew on Wednesday.
Lee was among a panel of international advisers who recently
visited Jakarta.

The Indonesian vice president, a daughter of the country's
former president Sukarno, will deliver a special address to a
forum of top business executives on Wednesday.

Former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific affairs Stanley Roth on Tuesday told the same business
forum to be addressed by Megawati that the leadership crisis
gripping Indonesia was a threat to regional stability.

Roth said he was surprised that President Abdurrahman Wahid
did not take the recent cabinet shakeup as an opportunity to
forge a coalition and instead installed his loyalists.

"It is now open season for politics in Indonesia," he said.

But the veteran Asian watcher also cautioned against
underestimating the Indonesian president's ability to survive,
saying that previous predictions on his political future were
proven wrong.