President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reaffirmed on Friday Indonesia'€™s commitment to support the Palestinian state to seek full independence and sovereignty, saying he hoped Saturday'€™s international conference would benefit the cause.

Yudhoyono made his remarks during the first state visit of the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to Jakarta since the latter took office last year, and ahead of Saturday'€™s Cooperation Among East Asian Countries for Palestinian Development (CEAPAD) II conference in Jakarta.

 '€œWhere there is will there is way,'€ Yudhoyono said during a joint press conference after the bilateral meeting at the Presidential Palace, adding that he hoped Saturday'€™s conference would '€œrun well'€.

On Saturday, Indonesia will host the conference and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa will co-chair the session with his Japanese and Palestinian counterparts.

Yudhoyono is set to officially open the conference, while Hamdallah is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech.

Hamdallah said although '€œup to now, there is no breakthrough to talk about'€, the hope was still there and thanked Indonesia for its support.'€œI hope this conflict could be settled; I hope we can live as any other nation, a sovereign, independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital,'€ he said.

He later deemed that the Saturday meeting would be '€œvery important, especially, at this particular time when we are working to build our country to prepare for statehood, which would come, I hope, very soon'€.

The Palestinian refugee population '€” who have been displaced by the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict '€” now numbers over five million people who are living in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank.

An example of Indonesia'€™s support for the Palestinian people, Hamdallah later cited, was training in Indonesia, a move initiated by Indonesia in 2008.

At that time, Indonesia was co-chair of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP) with South Africa, which had agreed to support Palestine'€™s state-building efforts by providing ten thousand Palestinians with training by 2013.
'€œThe deadline had passed, but the President instructed that we should renew it for another five year,'€ Hamdallah said.

Indonesia, as the host of the CEAPAD forum, is expected to ensure that the partnership was given added value with other forms of cooperation.

'€œWe achieved more [than we committed to] through 128 programs including industry, finance and agriculture,'€ Marty said. '€œFor the next five years, we want to know [on Saturday] from Palestine what it needs so that we can start [new] partnership programs.'€

During Friday'€™s bilateral meeting, Indonesia and Palestine also signed three memorandums of understanding (MoUs), including on economic cooperation, education and tourism.A business forum and trade expo will also be held from Saturday to Sunday, to foster economic cooperation between businesses in East Asia and Palestine. The Foreign Ministry'€™s director general for information and public diplomacy, AM Fachir, said that the participation of the private sector would be crucial to push investment and economic cooperation.

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