Athens, 22 November 2023

1st Vice-President of Parliament I. Plakiotakis meets with Vice-President of Republic of Indonesia Ma' ruf Amin

The 1st Vice-President of the Parliament Ioannis Plakiotakis met today with the Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia Ma' ruf Amin. From the Greek side the meeting was also attended by the Chairperson of the Committee on Educational Affairs Christos Kellas and the Chairperson of the Greece-Indonesia Parliamentary Friendship Group, Makarios Lazaridis, a New Democracy MP. 

The 1st Vice-President started by expressing his sorrow over the hit the Indonesian hospital in Gaza had recently taken in the midst of the unfolding crisis. As he went on to say, Greece supports the need to protect all civilians in order to tackle the humanitarian crisis, through humanitarian corridors and pauses in order to provide humanitarian aid. Our country has already sent humanitarian aid in the form of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical material to Gaza, while it has also announced extraordinary financial aid. Mr Plakiotakis also noted that efforts should be made to prevent the conflict from spilling over to the wider region, as this would destabilise the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, with incalculable consequences (e.g. migration, terrorism), while he pointed out the positive development of the agreed upon 4-day ceasefire the previous day. 

The meeting reaffirmed the excellent level of bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation. The 1st Vice-President of the Parliament reminded Mr Ma’ ruf Amin of the active solidarity Greece demonstrated during the pandemic, when our country donated more than one million vaccines to Indonesia. In addition, he underlined the commitment of both countries – that have large island complexes  - to international law, emphasising the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. At the same time, he expressed his satisfaction over the mutual support for the candidacies to the UN Security Council (Greece for 2025-2026 – Indonesia for 2019-2020) and thanked Indonesia for the stance it took at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation on the resolutions proposed by Türkiye, regarding the Muslim minority in Greece. Lastly, he referred to aspects of bilateral cooperation, such as trade, shipping, tourism, infrastructure, renewable energy sources, that are at a good level, but there is, clearly, great room for further development. The convening of the Greece-Indonesia Joint Inter-ministerial Committee will be a significant step in this direction, as he said, since it will provide an impetus and deepening to bilateral cooperation. 

For his part, the Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia warmly thanked Mr Plakiotakis for welcoming him at the Parliament, for the meeting and the detailed briefing. As he said, the two countries are linked by many strong bonds. Regarding the situation in the Middle East, Mr Amin emphasised the need for a de-escalation, for dialogue between the two sides, in order to limit the loss of human lives. In other points of his intervention, the Vice-President of the Republic of Indonesia spoke of the need for the peaceful coexistence of different religious denominations, which should not be the cause of bloodshed. Regarding the bilateral relations between Greece and Indonesia, Mr Amin expressed the wish to strengthen parliamentary diplomacy, especially through the Parliamentary Friendship Groups, and to increase the bilateral trade volume and the overall economic cooperation.  

 

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