Indonesian leader to outline 'strategic partnership' with US

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia's president hopes to discuss a new "strategic partnership" with the United States when he meets US President Barack Obama in Singapore on the weekend, an official said Tuesday.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to meet Obama on Sunday on the sidelines of a summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told reporters.

"I believe the president has proposed that there will be a strategic partnership between Indonesia and the US. This has received a good response by the US government," Djalal said.

Senior officials from both countries were drafting a document outlining "practical measures to raise the relationship between Indonesia and the US to a higher level", he added.

"Top officials of Indonesia and the US are finalising the content and not just the concept. We're moving towards that. It will be more clear after the meeting," he said.

Indonesia's Muslims make up 88 percent of the country's 234 million people, making the vast archipelago the most populous Muslim-majority country in the world.

It is also the third-biggest democracy after India and the United States, and the largest economy in Southeast Asia with a growth target of at least 7.0 percent by 2014.

As such it is seen as a key partner for the Obama administration's plans to re-engage with the Asia-Pacific region and with the Muslim world.

The White House last week announced Obama would hold the first meeting between a US president and leaders of all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein, in Singapore on Sunday.

Washington has previously refused to sit down with members of Myanmar's junta because of their suppression of democracy and rights abuses, allowing its differences with Yangon to upset ties with the rest of Southeast Asia.

Indonesia has been one of the harshest critics of the junta within ASEAN, but Djalal said the new US stance had Jakarta's full backing.

"We support the change in policy by the US... This development is good for our stability," he said.

Obama spent part of his childhood in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in the late 1960s, after his divorced mother married an Indonesian.