U.S. should build closer ties with RI: Downer

U.S. should build closer ties with RI: Downer

Agencies, Canberra/Sydney, Australia

Australia has urged the United States to build on its relationship with a more democratic Indonesia, Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said on Sunday.

He said the United States has a greater counterterrorism role to play with Indonesia following the direct election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

"We would like them to gradually and progressively and in a sensitive way build up their cooperation and engagement with Indonesia," Downer told Seven Network television. "And obviously that extends beyond just counterterrorism activities but it includes counterterrorism activities."

Prime Minister John Howard told newly re-elected U.S. President George W. Bush that America could now engage more successfully with the Indonesian administration because it was genuinely democratic, Downer said.

"One of the things we are saying to the Americans is that we now have a completely new Indonesia, in the sense that it is a country with a directly elected president for the first time at least since the 1950s -- a country with very genuine democratic legitimacy," Downer said.

"America will now be able to engage more successfully with Indonesia and the prime minister has made that point to President Bush."

Relations between the U.S. and Indonesian militaries were severed in 1999 over human rights concerns. Some in the Bush administration want the military links restored because of Indonesia's front-line status in the war on terror. But the U.S. Congress would first have to vote to lift the ban.

Downer said he wants the United States to continue contributing substantially to counterterrorism in Southeast Asia.

"The Americans, not just us, have been making a very strong contribution to counterterrorism in clearly the Philippines, where they have a small number of troops, but also in Indonesia," Downer said. "They've been providing assistance to the Malaysians, to the Thais and Singapore."

Earlier, Downer also warned that terrorist groups like al- Qaeda and Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) were trying to obtain nuclear weapons and would not hesitate to use them.

Speaking ahead of a two-day conference on regional nuclear proliferation starting in Sydney on Monday, Downer said although JI was yet to get its hands on atomic weapons, it would not give up trying.

"There's absolutely no doubt that terrorists, or at least some terrorists, are endeavoring to get hold of nuclear materials as well as other forms of weapons of mass destruction," he told commercial television.

"We don't have any evidence that for example that Jamaah Islamiyah is trying to do that, but we do in the Middle East that organizations like al-Qaeda are."

Downer said it was clear JI had no problem targeting innocent victims as it had in the Bali bombings which claimed 202 lives, including 88 Australians, in October 2002.

"Obviously, any organization that is prepared to wipe people out, young people enjoying themselves, wipe them out in Bali, is an organization that wouldn't stop short of using at least some sort of more vicious and more dangerous weapons.

"I think in the interests of the region and the interest of humanity we need to make a very big effort to stop the proliferation of these systems."

Downer said the conference was a chance to seek common approaches to the treatment of nuclear materials.

The conference, likely to be dominated by questions surrounding North Korea's nuclear ambitions, will be attended by government ministers and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei.

"This is about getting countries in our region to try to develop common approaches to dealing with questions such as nuclear security, that's the security of nuclear facilities of one kind or another that they themselves have," he said.

It was also about finding ways to stop inappropriate exports of material which could contribute to proliferation.

Downer said questions surrounding nuclear material in North Korea, Iraq and Iran highlighted the need to develop strong and consistent approaches.

"There is absolutely no consensus on how to handle these questions," he said. "There's no consensus in detail how to handle, for example, sensitive exports. There's no consensus on how to handle nuclear materials internally."