PM Howard will visit tsunami-hit Aceh province
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is scheduled to visit Indonesia's tsunami-hit northern province of Aceh on Wednesday to see personally the situation there and to give support to Australian aid personnel currently assisting victims of the disaster.
Howard's visit comes a day after Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah toured Aceh on Tuesday.
"I will meet Australian personnel at the airport, medical staff working at the ANZAC field hospital and engineers working to clear wreckage and reconnect water supplies," Howard said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post by the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
"I hope to be able to personally recognize and congratulate these fine Australians on their work and to appreciate directly the challenges faced by the Acehnese people and the Indonesian government,"
During the one-day visit, Howard also plans to meet Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda.
"I hope (during the meetings) to gain insight into how Australia can work with the Indonesian authorities in the period ahead as we embark on the next phase of the relief work and we begin the recovery and reconstruction phases,"
"These insights will be very valuable as we move forward with the A$1 billion (US$764 million) Australia-Indonesia partnership for reconstruction and development package announced by President Yudhoyono (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono)," he said.
Meanwhile, Howard said in Singapore that there were no plans to increase Australia's aid to its giant neighbor to deal with the aftermath of the tsunami.
"I think Australia's aid has been very, very generous and appropriate and I don't think anybody is suggesting that we have been anything other than very strong and up there with everybody else," Howard told the Associated Press on Tuesday.
"In fact, I think Australia's contribution to this terrible tragedy has been very praiseworthy indeed, and has attracted very strong praise and support all around the world."
Australia, the world's largest tsunami aid donor, has pledged a total of A$1 billion in grants and interest-free loans over five years for Indonesia.
Australia also deployed six C-130 transport planes and the HMAS Kanimbla to Aceh.
Bilateral relations between Jakarta and Canberra reached a low point in 1999, when Australia led a UN-peacekeeping force into East Timor to end Indonesia's 24-year rule in the territory, after East Timorese rejected an Indonesian proposal for wide autonomy in a plebiscite.
The two countries' relationship improved in late 2002 following the deadly Bali bombing which killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian.
Analysts have suggested that relations were further improved because of the Australian government's fast response in providing assistance to Indonesia to deal with the tsunami disaster.