President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has rearranged his plan to visit the Netherlands following a recent unfavorable situation at the destination country, which he says forced him to cancel the trip.
Yudhoyono said a strong movement demanding a legal settlement of Indonesia’s human rights violations in the Netherlands had hampered him from visiting the country.
“There has been a new development that has forced me to make this decision for our own interest,” Yudhoyono said at 2:25 p.m. on Tuesday at the Halim Perdana Kusuma airport in East Jakarta, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
“The Republic of South Maluku [RMS] separatists are involved in the movement,” he said, adding that the postponement was inestimable depending on the Netherlands’ security situation.
The President was originally scheduled to leave for the Netherlands from the Halim Perdana Kusuma airport at 1:30 p.m.
It would be the first state visit of an Indonesian president in almost 40 years since Soeharto visited the Netherlands in the late 1970s. Officials have said the state visit was to meet the invitation of Queen Beatrix four years ago.