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ndonesia has expressed its disappointment over the way Australia has dealt with the '€œserious'€ spying allegations and warned its southern neighbor that bilateral relations would only get worse should it fail to address the debacle accordingly.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has slammed Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott'€™s defensive statement regarding his country'€™s alleged attempt to tap his cell phone and that of his wife, Ani Yudhoyono, and his inner circle.

'€œI regret the Australian PM'€™s statement belittling the phone-tapping in Indonesia without feeling guilty. We are reviewing a number of cooperation agendas because of Australia'€™s damaging behavior,'€ he said on his Twitter account, @SBYudhoyono Monday night.

Indonesia has demanded an official explanation and apology from Canberra, but Abbott rebuffed the demands on Tuesday.

'€œI don'€™t believe that Australia should be expected to apologize for reasonable intelligence-gathering operations, just as I don'€™t expect other countries or other governments to apologize for their reasonable intelligence-gathering operations,'€ he told the Australian parliament as quoted by Reuters.

While stressing Indonesia'€™s importance to Australia, the Australian leader said that, '€œObviously
today may not be the best day in that relationship.'€

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa repeated on Tuesday Indonesia'€™s demand for a formal clarification and guarantee from Canberra that the spying would stop, saying that the government was now reviewing relations with Australia.

'€œWhile we are recalling our ambassador, we will review our ties with Australia in general, not only in the exchange of intelligence information, to make sure [their response] will not be business as usual,'€ Marty said at the State Palace.

'€œWe will continue to downgrade our relations with Australia. Let them draw their own conclusion,'€ he said. '€œWe are not waiting for Australia. We are now taking action.'€

With Abbott'€™s refusal to clarify and apologize for the spying incident, politicians in Jakarta said they doubted that bilateral relations would improve anytime soon.

'€œThat is a form of arrogance by Prime Minister Abbott in not wanting to apologize,'€ said Agus
Gumiwang Kartasasmita, the deputy chairman of the House of Representatives'€™ Commission I overseeing foreign affairs.

The Golkar Party politician said that it would be Australia'€™s loss if relations went from bad to worse.

On a similar note, Ramadhan Pohan, a lawmaker from the President'€™s ruling Democratic Party, said that the debacle would risk ending cooperation between the two countries, saying that '€œif ties worsen, there would be no cooperation and that would be troublesome for Australia'€.

TB Hassanudin of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) went further by saying that kicking out some Australian diplomats may appease public anger.

Teuku Rezasyah, an analyst from Bandung-based Padjajaran University, said there was still hope for Indonesia-Australia relations to improve.

He said that the Australian government should be able to give a more adequate answer to Indonesia in the next few days. He added that an explanation was needed to clear the air on whether the wiretapping was still going on.

'€œIndonesia and Australia have the Lombok treaty, a defense and security pact, where terms for military training and disaster management operations are detailed,'€ Rezasyah said over the phone on Tuesday. '€œIt will be very disappointing if relations go south and the treaty ends up being frozen,'€ Rezasyah added.

Indonesia and Australia froze its security cooperation once before, namely the Australian-Indonesian Security Agreement, due to the deteriorating situation in Timor Leste, he said. '€œWhen a government decides to review its bilateral ties, it has the option to just ignore agreements and not follow them up.'€ (asw)