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Top officials head to Natuna to bolster frontier
Chief security minister Mahfud MD set sail on Tuesday to the Natuna islands to speed up development at Indonesia's border with the hotly disputed South China Sea.
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Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD (center, in white) and Home Minister Tito Karnavian (left, in foreground) visit the North Natuna Sea aboard the KRI Semarang-594 naval hospital ship on Nov. 23, 2021. The visit intends to communicate the government's commitment to strengthening Indonesia's outermost islands and border areas. (JP/Dian Septiari)
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board a navy hospital ship, Indonesia’s chief security minister and home minister embarked on Tuesday on a two-day tour of the nation’s outermost islands adjacent to the South China Sea, in a move reaffirming the state’s commitment to developing the outlying region and safeguarding its maritime borders.
Mahfud MD, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, set sail alongside Home Minister Tito Karnavian aboard a Makassar-class landing platform dock to the Natuna island chain, Riau Islands province, to check on the progress of development at its furthest frontier.
The ministers are also scheduled to tour the archipelago’s northernmost outposts, the Laut and Sekatung islands, by helicopter on Wednesday. The island is close to the site of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which has in recent years seen an uptick in illegal incursions by foreign vessels, including from China.
But Mahfud insists that his voyage there has more to do with the state’s plan to fortify the nation’s border regions.
“It has nothing to do with China,” he said at a joint press briefing with journalists aboard the KRI Semarang-594.
“We’re developing our borders; there’s nothing being done that is specifically geared to any one country.”
Mahfud previously drew a red line on the need to consult with Beijing on Jakarta’s exclusive rights in the area, part of which China claims to be its traditional fishing grounds, based on overreaching claims in the South China Sea.
