U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt will meet here Monday with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss health cooperation and bird flu, presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said Sunday.

"Secretary Leavitt will meet the President on Monday afternoon. The agenda is to enhance cooperation in the health sector, and of course also the bird flu problem," he told The Jakarta Post.

The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta confirmed Leavitt's one-day visit and his plan to meet Yudhoyono, but could not confirm if the health secretary would talk to his Indonesian counterpart, Siti Fadilah Supari.

An embassy employee earlier said there were no plans for a meeting between Leavitt and Siti, raising speculation of continuing tension following the Indonesian health minister's anti-American comments over bird flu.

Siti said Sunday she was unaware of Leavitt's planned visit to Jakarta.

"No, I don't know that," she said when questioned during an event in Jakarta to raise public awareness of the health risks associated with climate change.

Siti has accused the U.S. of producing "biological weapons" from bird flu samples sent by Indonesia to the World Health Organization.

In her book, Saatnya Dunia Berubah, Tangan Tuhan di Balik Flu Burung (It's Time for the world to change, divine hands behind bird flu), Siti writes of her suspicions about a conspiracy between the United States and the WHO.

She says the collection of bird flu samples from developing countries like Indonesia for the production of vaccines is a conspiracy to force the countries to buy expensive bird flu vaccines.

Siti also claims in the book that bird flu samples she sent to the WHO were used exclusively by 15 scientists at Los Alamos Laboratory in the United States.

The United States has flatly denied the accusation.

The United States said that as a party to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, it has undertaken not to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain microbial or other biological agents or toxins of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective and other peaceful purposes, as well as weapons and means of delivery.

Some experts have suggested that what concerned the United States most was that Yudhoyono appeared to have endorsed the book and did not ask Siti to retract her claims.

An Indonesian official said Siti would be called to the State Palace to attend the talks between Yudhoyono and Leavitt to reduce tensions.

The health minister took the international community by surprise when she defied protocol and refused to share bird flu virus samples with the WHO last year because she said the practice was unfair to developing countries.

Talks hosted by the WHO last year in Geneva failed to reach an agreement on a new virus-sharing system, but the stalemate shifted when Indonesia provided samples in February.

Bird flu has infected 129 Indonesians so far, killing 105, the highest death toll in the world. (dia)

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