No more reason to delay visit to Australia: Alwi
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)