India looks to dissuade Indonesian president from clubbing R-Day visit with Pakistan travel | India News

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto. NEW DELHI: While the Indian government has invited Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to participate in the Republic Day celebrations as the chief guest, and an official announcement about his visit is expected any moment now, it would not like him to club his visit to India with a proposed visit by the president to Pakistan.
Official sources have maintained for the past several weeks that Subianto will be the chief guest for the January 26 parade, but no official announcement has been made so far about the visit. Normally, the same announcement is made months in advance.
Amid this delay in announcement, reports emerged in Pakistan media earlier this week that the president is likely to arrive in Islamabad on January 26 for a 3-day visit. India has encouraged foreign leaders in the recent past to not include Pakistan in their itinerary while travelling to India, and to dehyphenate their ties with the 2 countries.
It is learnt that India has raised the issue diplomatically with Indonesia, hoping to dissuade Subianto from flying directly to Islamabad after the R-Day celebrations. The president hopping on a direct flight to Islamabad hours after the Indian military parade will be bad optics for India, given its troubled relationship with Pakistan over a range of issues, not least cross-border terrorism. Subianto had met the Pakistan PM, Shehbaz Sharif, in Egypt on the margins of a multilateral event in December and pledged to enhance economic cooperation between the two countries.
With their common focus on political sovereignty, economic self- sufficiency and independent foreign policy, India and Indonesia have traditionally enjoyed strong ties. Indonesia has also emerged as India’s largest trading partner in the Asean region. During the state visit of then Indonesian President Joko Widodo in 2016, the two countries agreed to establish a Security Dialogue in order to develop a comprehensive action plan on security cooperation.
Widodo was in India again in 2018 as one of the chief guests for the Republic Day parade, along with the leaders of 9 other Asean member-states. He too had travelled to Pakistan soon after his visit to India. This is the third time India has the invited an Indonesian president for Republic Day, the first being the inaugural event in 1950.

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