Australia, Indonesia come together on common grounds of counter-terrorism

The first Australian ministerial visit to Indonesia ended the diplomatic rift between both the countries since the execution of Bali Nine drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Justice Minister of Australia, Michael Keenan, is currently on a visit to Indonesia, after being appointed as the first minister for counter terrorism in May.

Indonesian Vice President of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla believes that the bond between the two countries have become much better compared to that few months ago. On his short visit, Keenan met his Indonesian counterparts and experts to talk on recent threats from Islamic State. He met Kalla on Wednesday to discuss counter-terrorism issues on how to deal with ISIS and be aware of the threatening activities and influences of the group.

According to Kalla, the Australian ministers will visit Indonesia every month. “The relationship with between Indonesia and Australia now I think is okay, it is much better compared with a few months ago,” he told the reporters.

In January, Indonesian President Joko Widodo denied to show mercy on the Bali Nine duo, even when Prime Minister Tony Abbott personally reached out to him. He led to the continuation of the tension between the two countries until Chan and Sukumaran were executed on April 29, 2015.

Foreign Ministers of Australia and Indonesia, Julie Bishop and Retno Marsudi respectively, broke the tension and had a warm conversation at a closed meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Malaysia.

Andrew Robb, the trade minister of Australia, will be taking trade mission to Jakarta in November 2015 in order to fulfill one of his wishes to make Indonesia one of the top 10 trading partners of Australia.

PPTAK, the Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre of Indonesia, and Australia’s own AUSTRAC have tracked the monetary transactions between Australia and Indonesia for the groups favouring Islamic State, a media reports from March said.

Also, Indonesia and Australia agreed to conduct a summit in Sydney with a specific agenda of counter-terror financing.

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