Minister fields questions: State Minister of the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office Bill Rammell (left) fields questions at a packed Center for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilizations seminar on Tuesday in Jakarta while UK’s Ambassador to Indonesia Martin Hatfull (second left) and Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin (right) look on. JP/RICKY YUDHISTIRA

The United Kingdom believes Indonesia can play a major role as an intermediary between Western countries and the Middle East, State Minister for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office Bill Rammell said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

"We believe that Indonesia can play its part-by leveraging its influence with members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to convince them to show the same unity in diversity, the same tolerance and willingness to seek compromise that has delivered so much for your citizens over the past decade," Rammell told the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilizations (CDCC), in his speech before an audience of religious leaders, intellectuals, youth activists and lawmakers.

"Indonesia has a leading role to play in the Islamic world by showing that being a nation with a devoted respect for religion does not mean you have to pander to those who wish to force one religion or one version of a religion on others."

The speech came after a closed meeting with Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda which mainly discussed cooperation on foreign policy in the Middle East.

But Rammell later faced difficulties in convincing the wary CDCC audience of his vision of Indonesia's role in conflict resolution and was met by a flurry of tough questioning regarding Britain's policy on Gaza and how exactly Indonesian "influence" would support peace agreeable to Palestinians.

Rammell said Indonesia is rightly supporting the Palestinian people as they are doing in the United kingdom and although the British government would like to recognize Hamas it would involve steps to be taken on the part of Hamas.

He also said that while the UK didn't support the force with which Israel responded to Hamas attacks during the war in Gaza, the UK was committed to maintaining an alliance with Israel.

"Israel is important because it has a right to exist and that is recognized by the vast majority of countries internationally," he said. "It's also a democracy and whatever you might feel about the state of Israel, its actions and its compromises are fundamentally necessary to try and get the security that the Palestinians, you and we desire."

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