Australia's relationship with Indonesia was going through a "difficult patch" but would not be permanently affected by a decision to grant temporary visas to a boatload of asylum-seekers from Papua, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday.
Australia last month granted 42 people from Indonesia's restive Papua Province, including prominent separatists and their families, permission to pursue refugee claims here.
The decision sparked anger among Indonesian nationalists who see Australia as attempting to help Papua break away from Jakarta following Canberra's involvement in East Timor's independence in 1999.
SUPPORT FOR JAKARTA
But the Australian prime minister, who has built a strong relationship with Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the government supported Jakarta's rule of the remote eastern province.
"We're going through a difficult patch, but I don't think it will undermine the strength of the relationship," Howard told commercial television.
"We have turned a page in our relationship and that's not going to be turned back, although we're going to go through difficult times," Howard said.
APPEAL
He appealed for Indonesia to respect the laws under which the Papuans, who arrived by boat in northeastern Australia in January, had been processed.
"I might ... say to our very good friends in Indonesia, we understand how you feel about west Papua, we understand that, but we ask you to respect and accept the process that goes on in Australia about people coming from west Papua," he said.
"And also accept my assurance that Australia has no designs at all on west Papua and we don't want west Papua to break away from Indonesia," he said.
Howard said he did not think that goodwill gained from Australia's help in the face of the 2004 tsunami disaster had been destroyed by the row which has seen Jakarta temporarily recall its ambassador from Canberra.
"I'm not as pessimistic as that," he said.
CARTOON WAR
The dispute has led to a tit-for-tat cartoon battle in newspapers, with a drawing in an Indonesian newspaper depicting Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as fornicating dingoes followed by one in an Australian broadsheet showing Yudhoyono as a dog mounting a Papuan.
Howard said cartoons were part of Australian society: "I don't approve of the taste but I'll defend to the death the cartoonist's right to be tasteless."
Downer on Saturday, however, said the government disassociated itself from the cartoon published in the Australian and warned that it could cause significant offence to Indonesians.
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