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Australian PM's goodwill visit to Indonesia continues

Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, starts a goodwill visit to Indonesia today with official talks with President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

The talks are expected to include the issues of unrest in the provinces of Aceh and West Papua, also known as Irian Jaya.

Mr Howard arrived in Jakarta on Sunday and made an immediate courtesy call on Megawati.

The Australian leader says the two acknowledged their differences on Australia's leadership of a military force to establish peace in East Timor in 1999 after pro-Jakarta militia laid waste to the province.

Mr Howard is scheduled to hold one hour of bilateral talks with Megawati at the Presidential Palace later today.

He says Australia and Indonesia should have a realistic relationship, without too many expectations.

If you invest the relationship with too many expectations you are often disappointed. But there are a lot of things that we have in common we have geography in common we have history in common we admire the attempts being taken by Indonesia to emerge as a democvracy and we respect and understand how difficult that process is.

13/08/01 7:13:59 | ABC Radio Australia News

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