Australia waits on Indonesia relations plan
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says relations with Indonesia continue to flourish despite Jakarta’s delay in returning a draft code of conduct aimed at restoring ties.
Already-strained relations have been dealt a further blow with new spy allegations claiming Australia offered intelligence to the US on trade talks with Indonesia.
Jakarta is reluctant to attach a timeframe to the restoration of ties, which is being steered through a six-point plan in a code of conduct it has proposed.
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has called for Australia to come clean on its past intelligence activities before attempting more progress on the plan.
Ms Bishop says Australia has already sent back its draft of the code of conduct and she’s waiting for Jakarta to respond.
“Once we receive that draft we’ll proceed to the other steps, but in the meantime our relations across a whole range of areas continue to flourish,” she told ABC radio on Thursday.
She didn’t believe Indonesia was purposely stalling to protest against Australia.
“I couldn’t imagine that would be the case. We had a meeting about it, we agreed to a process…” she said.