Indonesian and US officials scrambled on Monday to contain the fallout from the incident, with the latter apologizing for “any inconvenience to Gatot” and assuring the general was free to travel to the US.

However, the absence of a clear explanation from Washington about what exactly happened on Saturday when Gatot was notified by an Emirates official that he could not enter the US shortly before boarding the US-bound flight has left relations between the two nations hanging in the balance.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said she welcomed the decision to remove the travel restriction on the military chief, but she told them it was not enough and that Jakarta was still waiting for a clear explanation why the incident happened in the first place.

“They regretted and apologized over this incident that caused this inconvenience. I told them, OK, we accept the apology, but we continued to ask for clarification,” she said.

Retno was speaking to reporters after holding a meeting with the deputy chief of mission from the US embassy, Erin McKee, at the Foreign Ministry on Monday morning.

The US diplomat implied the embassy in Jakarta was equally clueless about what happened. “The embassy is working very hard to understand what transpired around this incident and we hope it will not happen again,” McKee said.

Popular

PDI-P will likely be part of opposition: Ganjar

Indonesia one step from Olympics after beating South Korea

Bahlil leads task force to boost sugar, bioethanol production in Papua