Sydney – Foreign Minister Alexander Downer renewed an invitation Sunday to Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid to visit Australia after the Indonesian parliament last week vetoed the trip.

The speaker of Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR), Akbar Tanjung, announced the veto on Friday, saying it was because Indonesians were pained by Australia's constant criticism of their country.

Downer said Wahid would be warmly welcomed any time, but shrugged off complaints about Australian criticism. He urged Indonesia to adopt restraint in dealing with Irian Jaya amid reports that 26 people had died in renewed violence there.

Indonesia had learned from East Timor that acts of violence against local people "inevitably breed enormous resentment and tend to be counter-productive", Downer told Channel Nine's Sunday program.

Tanjung said on Friday that the decision was made by faction heads in the DPR that a long-delayed visit by Wahid should not take place unless Australian Prime Minister John Howard first visited Indonesia.

However, Howard has already visited Indonesia three times and seems unlikely to do so again until Wahid visits Australia, as he has promised to do several times already this year, only to change his mind later.

Downer said Wahid had managed to visit plenty of other countries, though not Australia. "As we have said all along, the president is from our side very welcome to visit Australia," Downer told commercial television here.

"We have had no presidential visit from a president of Indonesia to Canberra since Indonesian independence in 1949 and only one visit to Australia. There have been 12 visits by Australian prime ministers to Indonesia since 1975, including three by Prime Minister Howard."

Downer said the Indonesian parliament had no power of veto over presidential travel arrangements. "When I went to Jakarta myself at the end of January, President Wahid said he would like to come to Australia," he said.

"So that is the process being put in place. For what it's worth, that is also the protocol, President Wahid being the newer head of government and that has been reflected in his visits to a number of other countries. The last time I talked to the Indonesian foreign minister last week, he made it clear to me the president was certainly intending to come soon."

Downer said there had been no movement on a proposed meeting between Howard, Wahid and East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao. That meeting was suggested for the West Timorese capital of Kupang. "There is a general feeling that such a meeting should take place," he said.

"Of course we don't want the relationship with Indonesia to be completely dominated by the issue of East Timor, important as that issue is in the relationship. There are a vast range of other issues."

Downer said Australia believed Irian Jaya, or West Papua as it is known to independence activists, should remain part of Indonesia. "We don't want to see the Balkanisation of Indonesia," he said. "We hope that the differences that exist between Jakarta and various community leaders in West Papua can be handled in an appropriate and peaceful way."