Indonesia’s former foreign affairs minister, Marty Natalegawa, has expressed concern about a lack of meaningful communication between Canberra and Jakarta, saying there is a sense of the bilateral relationship being “in abeyance”.
Natalegawa told Sky News on Monday the two governments needed to work cooperatively on a range of issues, from asylum seekers to transnational terrorism. In the past, during periods of diplomatic crisis, communication had actually intensified, not ceased.
“From my experience in the past, whenever we had a crisis communication intensified,” he said. “I’m not sure whether that sort of communication is going on at the moment, whether public or private.”
He reasoned that visible communication between the Australian prime minister and the Indonesian president was not a sign of weakness, but instead a sign of confidence in the relationship.
Relations between Canberra and Jakarta were tested by the decision by the president, Joko Widodo, to proceed with the executions of Bali Nine drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in April 2015.
The Australian government recorded its protest by ceasing communications at the foreign affairs minister level and withdrawing the Australian ambassador, Paul Grigson, from Jakarta. Grigson has recently resumed his post.
Natalegawa said on Monday that he opposed capital punishment. His anti-death penalty stance was a private view and he did not “advertise” it while in government.
He believed as Indonesian society transformed there would be an increasingly robust debate about the merits of capital punishment.
Natalegawa said the government in which he served had implemented an unofficial pause in executing prisoners, but the “drug menace” remained a significant problem for Indonesia, and he had not lobbied for clemency in the Bali Nine case.
The Australian immigration minister, Peter Dutton, played down strains in the bilateral relationship.
Dutton said Australia was rebuilding the relationship and had worked with Indonesia to disrupt the people-smuggling trade.
