Jakarta Globe, December 8, 2013
The office
of the Indonesian president suggested on Sunday that it was reluctant to
immediately “normalize” the country’s strained bilateral relations with
Australia after Prime Minister Tony Abbot said in a radio interview that the
country would continue to gather intelligence on Indonesia.
Teuku
Faizasyah, the Indonesian presidential spokesman for foreign affairs, said
there was a “different nuance” to Abbott’s statement that contrasted with
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s comments a day earlier during her
meeting in Jakarta with Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa. Marty said
after the meeting he was reassured Australia would cease targeted surveillance
of Indonesian officials.
“We need to
further study PM Abbott’s statement because it seems to have a different nuance
to that of Foreign Minister Bishop,” Faizasyah said on Sunday.
“We won’t
be in a rush to normalize the bilateral relations until we’re convinced that
Australia sincerely wishes to move the relationship forward.”
Indonesia-Australia
ties plumbed the lowest depth since the 1990s in the wake of allegations that
Australia had wiretapped phone conversations of Indonesia’s President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and key officials in 2009.
The
response from the Indonesian government was to suspend cooperation in areas
spanning people smuggling and intelligence sharing.
Yudhoyono
has hashed out new “protocols and codes of conduct” as a precondition for the
relationship to resume to business as usual. Marty, however, has referred to
his Thursday meeting with Bishop, which focused on the code of conduct talks,
as “very constructive and open”
“There is
almost no problem that cannot be resolved,“ the Indonesian foreign minister
said. “Australia has declared its regret about the incident that has disrupted
and hurt Indonesia’s interests.”
On Friday,
though, Abbot said in an interview with Australia’s Fairfax radio that
Australia would not stop collecting intelligence on Indonesia.
Asked
whether Australia had agreed to stop collecting intelligence on Indonesia,
Abbott replied,
“No. And
[Indonesia] certainly has not agreed to stop collecting intelligence on
Australia.”
Although
after that he added, “But we are close friends, we are strategic partners and I
certainly want Australia to be a trusted partner of Indonesia and I hope
Indonesia can be a trusted partner of Australia.”
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