Jakarta – Indonesia's foreign minister Tuesday denied claims reported by a local newsmagazine that President Abdurrahman Wahid accepted a $4 million aid donation from Kuwait in exchange for abandoning plans to visit Iraq last year.

The allegations, published in Forum Keadilan magazine Sunday, were made by an unnamed source within Indonesia's parliament, which is currently considering whether to push for Wahid's impeachment for corruption.

The magazine said Wahid failed to declare his receipt of the money, which is required under Indonesian law.

"It is not true," Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab told reporters at Jakarta's state palace. "It is just a new rumor that's being blown around to discredit the president." The Kuwaiti Embassy in Jakarta also denied the claim.

"We have never given any money for such a purpose to the president or anyone else," an embassy official said. Last August, Wahid raised international eyebrows when he announced he would visit Iraq's capital, Baghdad, and called on the UN to lift sanctions imposed after the invasion of Kuwait in the 1990 Gulf War. Wahid dropped his plans for the trip late last year.

The Indonesian president is currently fending off graft allegations, including a claim that he accepted a $2 million aid donation from the ruler of neighboring oil-rich Brunei, but failed to declare receipt of that money officially.