US President Barack Obama and family will visit Jakarta in March to launch a comprehensive partnership with Indonesia, and make a “sentimental” return to his childhood hometown.
Officials are quick to say that Obama’s visit symbolizes Indonesia’s important status in the eyes of the world’s biggest economy, while experts urged President Yudhoyono to make the most of the visit.
Top on Yudhoyono’s agenda, experts said, should be securing assurance the US would support Indonesia in a number of global negotiations, such as climate change and trade talks.
Other pending issues that needed to be addressed, said observers, included a joint virus research center, Namru, access to terror suspect Hambali and a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Obama will spend a couple of days in his childhood hometown with First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters in the second half of March,” Indonesian presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said Tuesday.
Dino explained that Michelle had earlier told Indonesia’s First Lady Ani Yudhoyono that Obama wanted to show his daughters where he had spent part of his childhood in Jakarta.
“His visit will thus be the longest visit made by a US president to Indonesia ... I must emphasize that there’s a sentimental aspect there,” Dino said.
“His intention to visit Indonesia for a few days shows his confidence in Indonesia’s security situation,”
he added.
Obama spent four years in Jakarta as a child when his mother Ann Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, whom she met in Hawaii.
Earlier, the White House said Obama and Yudhoyono would launch a US-Indonesian partnership aimed at broadening and strengthening ties between the US and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the visit reflected “current expectations” in relations with Washington.
“This is about developing a comprehensive partnership between the US and Indonesia in all areas,” he told Reuters.
The comprehensive partnership will cover a range of areas, including education, science and technology, trade and investment.
“Both Obama and SBY are facing great challenges at home that have occupied most of their attention... but the visit and the signing of the comprehensive partnership will be a milestone in bilateral relations that will see both countries step up efforts to establish closer ties,” said Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra.
Azyumardi said Obama should have visited Indonesia earlier when his campaign to reach out to the Muslim world was still high on the American agenda.
Hariyadi Wirawan, a lecturer of International Relations at the University of Indonesia, said Namru and Hambali were secondary issues that would not affect Indonesia’s relations with the US.
“We should be able to make the most of the strategic partnership by engaging with the US or we will lose the momentum to reach better bilateral relations,” he said.
Police intelligence Insp. Gen. Saleh Saaf said police would beef up security during Obama’s visit.
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