A prominent Indonesian politician said Australia's ambassador apologized yesterday over his alleged ill treatment during a trip to Sydney, defusing a diplomatic row between the two nations.
Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, a retired general, said he received the apology from Australian Ambassador Bill Farmer during a meeting between the pair over this week's incident.
Sutiyoso has complained that police entered his hotel room using a master key and urged him to give evidence at an inquest into the death of five Australia-based journalists in East Timor in 1975.
PHOTO: AP
A furious and offended Sutiyoso demanded an apology from Australia while the Indonesian government said his treatment in Sydney on Tuesday was unacceptable.
"We are a nation with a big heart. We have to forgive, even more so because the problem was only a technical problem," Sutiyoso said after the meeting.
"It should not be that because of a technical problem, we continue to demand things that are illogical. The Australian side has apologized and we will get an official apology letter," he told reporters.
An Australian embassy spokesman declined comment over the apology.
Prime Minister John Howard earlier sought to calm the row saying that while coroners conducting inquests acted independently of the government, "proper courtesy should be extended" when they carried out their work.
The incident sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity and the row has received extensive media coverage in Indonesia.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda summoned Farmer late on Wednesday to lodge a formal protest over the incident.
"We have demanded a clarification and accountability from the parties concerned in Australia," a foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday.
"We deem that the actions of the local police personnel are unacceptable and inappropriate, even more so because Sutiyoso was there as a government official at the invitation of the local government," spokesman Kristiarto Legowo said.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also spoke on Wednesday night with his Indonesian counterpart, the embassy in Jakarta said.
Security was stepped up outside the Australian embassy as youths gathered for a second day to protest Sutiyoso's treatment, ElShinta radio said.
Sutiyoso has said police entered his room in Sydney while he was taking a nap with a subpoena requesting that he give evidence at the inquest.
Sutiyoso, who had been the guest of the New South Wales Government and the state premier, cut short his visit and flew back to Jakarta.
The inquest in Sydney is probing the death of a cameraman who was among five British, Australian and New Zealand newsmen killed in the border town of Balibo ahead of the Indonesian military's invasion of East Timor in 1975.
The journalists were officially reported to have been killed in crossfire, but their families insist they were murdered and there was a cover-up by Canberra and Jakarta.
Sutiyoso, a retired lieutenant general, served in the military for three decades and was part of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. He has denied any role in the killings.
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
RSS