President to visit Australia to mend ties in May

President to visit Australia to mend ties in May

JAKARTA (JP): President Abdurrahman Wahid will visit Australia
next month to have talks with Prime Minister John Howard in an
apparent move to mend the deteriorating relationship between the
two countries.

"At the end of May, I shall go to Australia and I will talk to
John Howard," Abdurrahman told the Asia Society in Hong Kong on
Sunday, the last day of his recent overseas trip.

The ties between Jakarta and Canberra are at their lowest ebb
since the East Timor saga in September last year. Australia
played a major role in the UN-supervised self-determination
ballot in the former Portuguese territory and led a multinational
peacekeeping force deployed there.

Abdurrahman's plan comes on the heel of a spying incident
involving an Australian member of the UN peacekeepers (PKF) in
East Timor. The PKF commander, Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos, has
apologized to the Indonesian Military (TNI) over the matter.

The President expressed his optimism that the relations
between the two countries "will be improved".

"His (Howard) objections to us, among others, about making
Indonesia the departure point for those illegal migrants to
Australia from the Middle East is well taken and I've ordered the
National Police chief to stop that.

"So both of us can work together to stamp out that thing if we
can talk to each other, which is why talks are important for us,"
Abdurrahman added.

Gus Dur, as the President is also known, also said that he
would make a brief stopover in the North Australian city of
Darwin to meet with East Timor independence leader Jose Alexandre
"Xanana" Gusmao.

"It has come to the point where I will use my transit point in
Darwin to ask Xanana Gusmao to meet me there and to talk about
the idea of developing human resources in East Timor,"
Abdurrahman said.

It was not clear, however, whether the stop in Darwin would be
made on his way to Canberra or on his way home to Jakarta.

The two leaders last met in the East Timor capital of Dili on
Feb. 29. (byg)