Try Sutrisno to leave for Australia for three-day visit

JAKARTA (JP): Vice President Try Sutrisno will leave for Australia tomorrow for a three-day visit at the invitation of Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans.

Try is scheduled to meet with the Australian Governor General Bill Hayden, Prime Minister Paul Keating and Evans, the Australian embassy said yesterday.

His entourage will include Minister of Industry Tunky Ariwibowo, Minister of Defense and Security Edi Sudrajat, Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo and Cabinet Secretary Saadillah Mursjid.

Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono said yesterday that the visit is aimed at promoting Indonesia-Australia bilateral relations in politics, economics, culture, security and defense.

Try, a retired Army general, is scheduled to address a Royal United Services Institute international seminar on regional security in the Asia-Pacific toward 2001 to be opened by Keating at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra on Sept. 22.

The institute is a think-tank that groups both retired and active military officers focusing their studies on strategic and international affairs.

Try will also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Australian war memorial on Sept. 23 before leaving Canberra.

The vice president will spend the first day of his visit in Sydney and attend a gala dinner hosted by Evans aboard the Aussie Magic in Walsh Bay Wharf.

His Sydney itinerary also includes a meeting with Australian business leaders and another with the Indonesian community in Australia. Both events will be held on Friday in Canberra.

Try will become the highest Indonesian official to ever visit Australia for a very long time.

In contrast, almost every Australian head of government has visited Indonesia, including Prime Minister Paul Keating, who will be making his fourth trip to Jakarta this November.

Relations between the neighbors, which were turbulent in the 1970s and 1980s, have significantly improved in the last five years, a factor many have attributed to the hard work of Evans and his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas. (pan)