Abdul Khalik, Bogor – At least two of the experts who attended the bilateral talks between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and US President George W. Bush, are unsure whether their rapid-fire meetings with the American leader will amount to anything useful.
Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University scholar Komaruddin Hidayat, who met Bush on Monday, said the most important issue for Muslims here was how to solve the decades-old Palestine-Israel conflict. "I have conveyed this to President Bush; that this is our prime concern. As long as there is no sign that the US is willing to solve the problems, Indonesian Muslims will continue to show their anger against the US," he said.
Komaruddin said he told Bush that Muslims here were trying to battle extremism and asked him to reconsider US policies.
"Implicitly, we said, please, America's foreign policy, specifically on the Middle East, must be revised. Don't be one-sided because the crisis in Muslim world is mostly influenced by cases in the Middle East," Komaruddin said.
"Bush was very open and appreciative of criticism and argument because he seems to be very committed to democracy. It remains to be seen how he implements our suggestions in the field," Komarudin said.
Along with Komaruddin, Bush met eight other public figures – physicist Yohannes Surya, economist Muhammad Ikhsan, educational expert Arief Rahman, health expert Nila Moeloek, Papuan leader Frans Wospakrik, Acehnese leader Yusni Sabi, Ridwan Jamaludin of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and Adi Santoso from the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.
Each of them was given only three minutes to convey what they wanted Washington to do to help Indonesia.
"From the beginning, I didn't expect much from the talks. What can you get out of three minutes? However, this was a golden opportunity for us to say what we wanted to the US. Oh, how short a time we had," one expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Bush also met some younger guests – primary students from Bogor's SDN Papandayan school – at the Bogor Presidential Palace, where he stayed during his busy six-hour meeting.
Yudhoyono described his talks with Bush as "open, frank, constructive, sometimes critical, and what is important is that we tried to discuss cooperation on how to make Indonesia-US relations touch on the lives of our people."
It was Bush's second trip to Indonesia. The Bush administration wants to establish strategic relations with Indonesia, which has Southeast Asia's largest economy.