JAKARTA, July 31 (Reuters) - Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto said on Friday that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung asked him whether he could visit North Korea to open dialogue, adding that he would go.
Prabowo was speaking during a meeting with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce.
As Prabowo spoke about Indonesia’s pursuit of equally good relations with all countries, including China and The United States, he brought up the request made at his last visit to Seoul in April.
“During my last visit to South Korea, their president asked me if I could visit North Korea to open some kind of a dialogue. I told him, with all due respect and willingness, if you asked me to, I would go,” he said.
“Indonesia is seen as having no interest in meddling in other countries’ domestic affairs. We hold firm to that,” he said.
In response, Lee’s office said South Korea believed Indonesia and other countries with friendly ties to both Seoul and Pyongyang could play a constructive role in helping foster peaceful coexistence on the Korean peninsula, and that it had continued to explore ways to cooperate with them.
Indonesia traditionally has a non-aligned foreign policy.
It is not the first time Prabowo has expressed his willingness to mediate.
Indonesia’s foreign minister Sugiono said in March that Prabowo was willing to be a mediator in the Iran war in a bid “to cool down and de-escalate the situation in the region.”
Lee and Prabowo discussed energy security and agreed to expand cooperation in areas such as defence during the April meeting.
Lee has sought to ease tensions with Pyongyang since taking office last year, but repeated overtures for dialogue have been rebuffed by North Korea, which declared South Korea as a “hostile nation” in 2024.
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto and Stefanno Sulaiman; Additional reporting by Heejin Kim and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by David Stanway)
