SBY Doubtful for ASEAN Summit in US

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is unlikely to attend a summit of Southeast Asian leaders called by US President Barack Obama this month in New York, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The failure of the leader of the region’s biggest economy and the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country to attend the summit will be a blow to Obama’s efforts to reach out to the strategically important region. Officials blamed the short notice given for the summit, which was announced on September 3, and Yudhoyono’s prior engagements.

“The US-ASEAN summit invitation was given in short notice. The president’s agenda at that time was fixed earlier this year,” spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told AFP.

The White House has said Obama will hold talks with leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in New York on September 24, at the time of the annual United Nations General Assembly. The summit is Obama’s latest attempt to reinvigorate US policy towards the rapidly developing region, where US primacy is seen by some as waning in the face of China’s growing economic and military might.

Domestic affairs have forced Obama, who went to school in Indonesia as a child, to cancel two visits to Jakarta in the past 12 months. The democratic, nominally secular archipelago is a key founding member of ASEAN, which includes members as diverse as regional financial hub Singapore, Buddhist Thailand, communist Vietnam and military-ruled Myanmar.