JAKARTA: Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto’s offer to travel to Iran and mediate its conflict with the United States and Israel aligns with the Southeast Asian country’s foreign policy principles, the spokesperson for the foreign ministry said on Friday (Mar 6).
Yvonne Mewengkang, however, stressed that Prabowo will only undertake the trip if his offer is approved by all conflicting parties. There are no reports yet as to whether Prabowo’s offer has been accepted.
Prabowo had earlier offered himself as a facilitator to help deescalate tensions between Iran, the United States and Israel.
“(President Prabowo’s offer) is, of course, consistent with the active non-alignment policy to continue pushing for a peaceful resolution and preventing the spread of conflict,” Yvonne was quoted as saying by news agency Antara.
She added that the ministry is ready to assist Prabowo in carrying out the mediation plan once directives have been given.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is basically ready to coordinate with related ministries and certainly prepare in accordance with the president’s instructions,” Yvonne said.
On Thursday, Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Nusron Wahid said that Prabowo had received the backing from several Middle Eastern and other Islamic countries for Indonesia’s initiative to mediate and ease tensions between Iran and the US.
“The president wants to meet with Iran … He has received support from several Middle Eastern countries, including Pakistan and the UAE,” said Nusron, referring to the United Arab Emirates.
Nusron, who is also a senior member of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), said that Prabowo and several other leaders of the Developing Eight (D-8) shared a desire to promote peace in the region, reported Antara.
The D-8 is an intergovernmental organisation meant to foster development cooperation among major Muslim-majority emerging economies. Indonesia, Malaysia, Iran and Pakistan are among its members. The 12th D-8 Summit is set to be held in Jakarta in April 2026.
“President Prabowo, along with the seven leaders of the D-8, seek for peace. We should not allow wars to drag on, especially in Iran, the Gulf region, and so on,” Wahid.
The minister’s comments came after Prabowo hosted a Ramadan dinner at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta where he spoke for more than three hours while outlining his views on conflict in the Middle East, Bloomberg reported.
Experts previously told CNA that Prabowo’s mediation offer was a bold move even if some believe that the plan is unlikely to materialise given that the proposal is “unrealistic” and “gimmicky”.
Dino Patti Djalal, Indonesia’s former deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to the United States, had also argued that the US rarely agrees to third-party mediation in its conflicts, which in his view makes Prabowo’s proposal unrealistic.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-iran-united-states-israel-prabowo-subianto-mediator-5978356
