No more reason to delay visit to Australia: Alwi

JAKARTA (JP): While observing improving relations between Jakarta and Canberra, Minister of Foreign Affairs Alwi Shihab said on Wednesday that there should be no more reasons for President Abdurrahman Wahid to delay his visit to Australia.

"Since my last meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer late last year, Canberra has been giving positive statements about us (Indonesia).

"And I don't see the Australian government trying to jeopardize the relationship between both countries," Alwi told reporters on the sidelines of a hearing with the House of Representatives Commission I on Security, Defense and Foreign Affairs.

"Insya Allah (God willing), the President will leave for Australia in April," he said.

He said the government had already made preparations for the President's planned visit during a ministerial meeting between both countries in Canberra late last year.

"We have followed the steps suggested by the House. So there should be no more reasons to delay the trip.

"We have to stop looking at the past and start to look forward in our relationship," the minister said.

Bilateral ties between both countries have gone through an extremely difficult period since Australia led a multinational force in East Timor in 1999.

The President's planned trip to Australia has been delayed several times because of anti-Australian sentiment in Indonesia.

Last December, ministers from Indonesia and Australia held a two-day meeting in Canberra and had high-level discussions in an effort to further jump-start ties and focus on enhancing economic cooperation.

Abdurrahman is planning a series of trips abroad, including a long-awaited visit to Australia.

The President is scheduled to leave on Feb. 22 for Yemen, Nigeria, Sudan, Abu Dhabi and Cairo. He will join the haj pilgrimage to Mecca before returning to Jakarta on March 7.

Ambassador

During the hearing with Commission I, Alwi also reported that the Indonesian Ambassador to the United States Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti will end his tenure in March 2001 after three years of service.

Alwi said the ministry had appointed one of its senior diplomats Nugroho Wisnumurti, the current Indonesian permanent representative to the United Nations office in Geneva, to replace Dorodjatun.

Nugroho, former director general for political affairs at the ministry, once served as the Indonesian permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.

The replacement for Nugroho has yet to be named.

Separately, sources at the ministry told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew will arrive for a two-day visit to Jakarta on Friday to join the first meeting of Abdurrahman's international advisors.

"Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew will visit Jakarta on Friday. From the visit, we can say that our relationship with Singapore is fine," the source said, while referring to the strained ties between both countries following Abdurrahman's stinging remarks against Singapore late last year.

The President has several international advisors, including Lee Kuan Yew, former U.S. Secretary of States Henry Kissinger and the Netherlands' former foreign minister Hans Van den Broek. (dja)