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Thai FM to visit RI to discuss ASEAN affairs
Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is set to meet her Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai in Jakarta on Wednesday in their third bilateral meeting in the last few months, demonstrating the cordial relations between Indonesia and Thailand, ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir has said
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span>Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is set to meet her Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai in Jakarta on Wednesday in their third bilateral meeting in the last few months, demonstrating the cordial relations between Indonesia and Thailand, ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir has said.
The two ministers are expected to talk mostly about ASEAN affairs, as Thailand holds the bloc’s chairmanship this year.
“The issues related to the Indo-Pacific concept are a concern of the meeting because senior ASEAN officials are currently tasked with completing the common outlook on the Indo-Pacific,” Arrmanatha said on Tuesday.
The Indo-Pacific is an evolving concept for a regional order straddling the Indian and Pacific oceans, which has gained popularity in recent years, being mentioned by many world leaders in different occasions, including by United States President Donald Trump in his 2017 Asia tour.
Many countries in the region have set their eyes on the region and developed their own concepts, such as India’s Act East Policy, South Korea’s New Southern Policy, Japan’s and the US’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy, as well as Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper.
Indonesia has been pushing for ASEAN to have its own stance on the matter, with a view that an ASEAN-led Indo-Pacific regional architecture should be discussed in the East Asia Summit (EAS) — an annual forum consisting of 10 ASEAN nations and eight other countries, which arguably already have their own Indo-Pacific interpretations.
Arrmanatha said ASEAN countries in general had agreed that the Indo-Pacific region could be jointly managed for mutual interests.
“Indonesia’s concept on Indo-Pacific strategy, which was presented by President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo at the EAS last year was well received by ASEAN ministers,” Arrmanatha said. “We are hoping the ASEAN common outlook can be completed soon so that ASEAN can deliver its common position, which puts mutual interest above the interests of individual countries.”
Thai Ambassador to ASEAN Phasporn Sangasubana earlier said that it was very timely for ASEAN to come up with its own outlook.
“We don’t fight with other countries, but from an ASEAN [perspective] we would like to complement the concept with one voice. […] This will happen in our chairmanship,” she said in a seminar on Monday.
During an ASEAN ministerial retreat in January, Pramudwinai aired the need to integrate the principles in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), a peace treaty among Southeast Asian countries established by the founding members.
In addition to talking about Indo-Pacific strategy, the two ministers are also expected to discuss the latest development in Myanmar’s Rakhine state where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims crossed into neighboring Bangladesh to flee from violence and persecution.
Arrmanatha said that bilateral issues between Indonesia and Thailand would also be on the table. “Representing two rubber-exporter countries, they [Retno and her Thai counterpart] will discuss efforts to stabilize the price of rubber, which has continued to decline in the past few months.”
