VP meets up with British Ambassador

Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla received the visit of the ambassador of the United Kingdom to Indonesia Moazzam Malik at his office today. Ambassador Malik met up with the Vice President to discuss further cooperation between the UK and Indonesia in economy and fighting against extremism.

According to him, the existence of ISIS made the world reluctant to extremism. For this, he said, the UK government needs to join cooperation with Indonesia to fight against this extremist ideology as the country is believed to have a good record of religious tolerance and plurality.

Mr Malik also told the Vice President about some British Muslim scholars and leaders of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies who plan to visit Indonesia in the next few months. The visit, he said, is hoped able to build partnership between British and Indonesian Muslims.

The Vice President, in response, welcomed the idea of joint cooperation of the two countries as mentioned by the ambassador who fluently speaks Indonesian.

Regarding ISIS, Mr Kalla explained, it is a violent group of young people who are fighting for something with shallow understanding of Islam. Yet in fact, he continued, killing innocent people, including women and children, would not take them into paradise as they have aspired.

To tackle such ideology, the Vice President said, Indonesia is planning to build an international Islamic university to promote moderate thinking.

Other than religious tolerance, they both also talked about investment climate in Indonesia. Mr Malik, quoted data from the World Bank, said the Indonesian index on the ease of doing business has improved from 114 to 109. However, he said, this is still the weakest in the Asian region.

The ambassador believed the Indonesian government has made the right steps by launching the economic policy packages. “We wish to help Indonesia to take further steps to make the investment climate in the country better in the coming years,” said Mr Malik.

Responding to this, the Vice President stated that the economic policy packages should be followed with implementation. “This is our homework to get the policy implemented,” he said.

Ambassador Moazzam Malik at the visit was accompanied by the British Embassy’s Internal Politics Official Louis Clarke and the Oxford University’s Centre of Islamic Studies Director Farhan Nizami.

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