With four days to go to US President Barack Obama’s visit to Indonesia, it remains unclear whether he will visit the country’s largest mosque, Istiqlal, as the White House suggested last week.
“It is still tentative,” Julian Aldrin Pasha, a spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday.
“He has plans to go there, but we heard that it is not yet confirmed. It will be decided directly by the White House.”
A schedule obtained by the Globe on Thursday showed the mosque was not on the itinerary.
Such a visit, in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, had been seen as a symbolic gesture to engage Muslim communities around the world.
The visit to Indonesia in itself has been seen as a good opportunity for Obama to once again send a message of peace to the Muslim world, that the United States is not waging war against Islam.
On Tuesday, Obama is scheduled to meet with Yudhoyono, and a visit to the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery in South Jakarta is planned for early the next day.
He is also scheduled to give a speech at University of Indonesia before leaving later in the day for South Korea to attend the Group of 20 summit in Seoul.
Yudhoyono on Thursday chaired a meeting with several of his ministers, including the three coordinating ministers and the foreign minister, to discuss preparations for Obama’s visit.
Meanwhile, Austrian President Heinz Fischer will be in the country from Tuesday through Thursday.
He is expected to be accompanied by his wife, a number of ministers, senior officials and a business delegation.
“There will be comprehensive partnership launched during Obama’s visit,” Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, told journalists after the meeting at the palace.
“Comprehensive means discussing all aspects, not only concerning political, security but also economy, trade, investment, people to people relation, cooperation in the fields of education, environment and regional problems.”
Marty said that among one of the issues the two sides hoped to work on was the sharp decline in the number of Indonesian students studying in the United States, now at around 7,000 from the previous 14,000.
“We will try to solve this so there would be a bigger possibility for Indonesians to study in the United States,” he said.
Hatta Rajasa, coordinating minister for economy, said that the focus of the economic cooperation is on Overseas Private Investment Corporation that has been agreed.
“[There will also talk] about clean energy that is our focus for the future,” Hatta said.
Regarding investment, Hatta said that US companies is one of the biggest investors in Indonesia, through company such as GE, Caterpillar and many others.
The recent election result in the USA, Mary said, did not influence the relationship of the two nations.
“The internal development in US will not impact the relationship of Indonesia and US,” Marty said.
“The comprehensive partnership between the two nations based on strong base and it is strategic for the future, so it would not be influenced on the internal situation in that country.”
• thejakartaglobe
