US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited a slum in Indonesia’s teeming capital at the end of her first trip to a Muslim-majority country since President Barack Obama promised to mend fences with the Islamic world.
Crowds clapped and smiled as Clinton visited projects funded with US aid money in the Petojo area of central Jakarta on the second day of her trip to Obama’s former hometown.
Obama spent four years of his childhood in the upmarket Menteng area of central Jakarta in the late 1960s and is hugely popular in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world. Obama was known to his friends as Barry when he attended primary school in Jakarta from 1967 to 1971, after his American mother divorced his Kenyan father and married an Indonesian.
She met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier Thursday and told journalists afterwards that Washington wanted Jakarta’s "advice and counsel about how to reach out not only to the Muslim world but to Asia and beyond."
Her first stop was Japan but Indonesia was second ahead of South Korea and regional powerhouse China, reflecting Obama’s promise to reach out to the Muslim world and heal the rifts which opened under President George W Bush.
By visiting Indonesia on her first trip abroad in her new job, Clinton said she wanted to show that the United States was not completely distracted by China and was ready to re-engage with Asia after years of neglect under Bush.
Clinton met Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda on Wednesday and said Indonesia — as a democratic and mainly Muslim country — would play a key role in the Obama administration’s new commitment to "smart power."
The US looked forward to deepening cooperation with Indonesia on several "shared issues" such as the global economic crisis, climate change, security and human rights, she said.
Clinton also confirmed she would attend an international conference next month in Egypt to help rebuild Gaza after the Hamas-Israel war.
Clinton left Indonesia on Thursday for Seoul.