Indonesia Expresses Support for Ukraine but Doesn’t Confirm Zelenskyy’s Invite to G-20 Summit
Indonesia's President Joko Widodo delivers his speech at the Bogor Palace in West Java on Saturday, April 2, 2022, a day before the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins. Last month, following intense Western pressure, Indonesia put on hold plans for the state’s oil and gas company to purchase cheap Russian crude oil amid soaring global energy prices. Moscow has a glut of oil it is offering at a huge discount to countries willing to defy Western sanctions, including China and India.
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Senior Indonesian officials have pushed back against Western pressure on the issue of the G-20.
Member states must work in unison to create stability and prosperity together, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told VOA’s Indonesian Service last week.
“This is one of the most important [thing] for us — to support the idea of cooperation that needs to be maintained and should not [be] characterized in such a very binary, simple way,” she said.
So far Moscow has not announced a change in plans for Putin to attend the summit in person.
Earlier this month the Biden administration signaled it wants the G-20 to discuss the international economic repercussions of the Russian invasion and potentially Ukraine’s reconstruction. That idea is likely to create a further rift in the economic forum.
Earlier this week, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs, told VOA’s Indonesian Service his government will “see what happens.”
“Nobody losing face,” he said. “That, I think, is the best.”
Source: VOA
