Ministry Denies Issues Jokowi Not Welcomed in United States

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Teuku Faizasyah, clarified issues that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was not welcomed upon arrival in the United States. 

Faizasyah emphasized that the visit to Washington D.C. is for the US-ASEAN Summit, not a bilateral meeting. “We saw that all [ASEAN countries] arriving [in the US] received the same treatment,” he said in a press conference in Jakarta, Thursday, May 12, 2022.

Jokowi arrived at Military Joint Base Andrews, Washington DC, on Tuesday night local time, or Wednesday morning at 08:00 a.m. Jakarta time. The summit was scheduled to take place from May 12 to 13, 2022.

Faizasyah also appealed to the public to be mainly concerned about the substantive goals of Indonesia's mission to the summit, instead of such technical matters.

This year's US-ASEAN Summit will be the first offline meeting between ASEAN leaders and the United States President Joe Biden since 2017. Last year on October 26, 2021, President Biden attended the 9th US-ASEAN Summit virtually.

According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s press release on Monday, May 9, 2022, the US-ASEAN Summit will discuss various issues, including the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, collaboration in the health and education sector, acceleration of economic recovery, and various geopolitical challenges, both regionally and globally.

Read: Jokowi, ASEAN Leaders to Meet Joe Biden at the White House

DANIEL AHMAD