RI named host of APPF meeting

JAKARTA: Indonesia has been asked by the president of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF), Yasuhiro Nakasone, to host the APPF meeting in 2005, Deputy House Speaker A.M. Fatwa said on Tuesday.

Fatwa, a leader of the National Mandate Party (PAN), said that the request was personally aired by the former Japanese prime minister at a meeting with the Indonesian delegation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Tuesday.

Fatwa made the statement after returning home from Kuala Lumpur, from where he had headed a delegation of Indonesian legislators to the APPF meeting from Jan. 13 through Jan. 15.

He said that during the meeting with Japan's former leader the Indonesian legislators had asked the Japanese government to lift a travel warning advising its nationals not to visit Indonesia.

The legislators also asked the Japanese government to tell its businesspeople not to pull their investments out of Indonesia.

Fatwa said he returned home sooner than the delegation members to have another meeting with government officials. --JP