Carr seeks better relations with Indonesia

Carr seeks better relations with Indonesia

22:00 AEST Sat Jul 14 2012

By Karlis Salna, AAP South-East Asia Correspondent

Foreign Minister Bob Carr says he wants to "levitate" the dialogue between Australia and Indonesia to a higher level, beyond "transactional" matters of people smuggling and drugs cases.

In his first official visit to Indonesia as foreign minister, and ahead of talks with senior officials in Jakarta next week, Senator Carr has also insisted he will not be silent on the issue of human rights in Papua.

The foreign minister was speaking at the village of Umbulharjo, which is still recovering from the effects of when the archipelago's most active volcano, Mt Merapi, erupted in 2010.

A bridge in the village was destroyed by lava as a result of the devastating eruption, which killed 353 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

It has since been rebuilt under a grants program funded by Indonesia, with $200 million in Australian assistance over four years.

Australia is the largest provider of foreign aid to Indonesia, and increased its contribution again in this year's budget.

However, Senator Carr said the assistance provided to Indonesia was not about ensuring co-operation on matters such as asylum seekers.

"I want to levitate the Australia-Indonesia relationship above these regular transactional issues of people smuggling, live cattle exports and Australians who are charged with drug offences," he said.

"Our relationship with this most populous and important of our neighbours - it's about far more, far more than those occasional irritant issues."

Despite the sensitivity of the asylum seeker issue for Australia, and the continuing unrest in Papua, the foreign minister warned he would not stay silent if there were concerns over human rights abuses.

"We recognise Indonesia's sovereignty in the Papuan provinces but at the same time we've got a dialogue about what they do in response to any unrest in those provinces," he said.

"And we think Indonesian sovereignty is something that can be firmly stated without doing anything that breaches human rights standards."

It was in fact his Indonesian counterpart, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who raised the issue of Papua in their first meeting in Australia, Senator Carr said.

The two men are set to hold further talks in Jakarta next week.

"He stated his interests in this even before I got to the subject on the agenda. I think that says a lot about Indonesia's recognition of the Australian focus on human rights.

"So, absolutely do we recognise Indonesia's sovereignty. It's in the Lombok Treaty, there's no argument about that.

"But we quietly work with the Indonesians to see that there, as elsewhere, reasonable standards of human rights protections are maintained."

When asked if he supported calls for foreign journalists, who are effectively banned from venturing to Papua, to be allowed to travel to the province, he said: "More transparency would help and not hurt the Indonesian case."

ENDS

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