Canberra – Prime Minister John Howard assured Indonesia Sunday that he does not support the separatist movement in Papua after an Australian newspaper crudely lampooned the Indonesian president over the restive province.

Both countries condemned The Weekend Australian cartoon Saturday which scorned President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's treatment of the province nearest to Australia where separatists are struggling for independence. Canberra's embassy in Jakarta fears a public backlash, the government said.

The cartoon and government responses underline the furor between the neighboring countries since Canberra accepted a group of Papuans as refugees last month.

The cartoon depicts Yudhoyono as a male dog copulating with a concerned-looking Papuan who is also represented as a dog.

Howard described the cartoon as "tasteless" and Yudhoyono as "a wonderful man."

Howard also used a national television interview Sunday to assure Indonesians that Canberra did not support the separatist movement in Papua, also known as West Papua.

"Accept my assurance that Australia has no designs at all on West Papua and we don't want West Papua to breakaway from Indonesia," Howard told Network Ten television. "We fully accept and endorse Indonesian sovereignty."

That claim was contradicted by a cartoon that appeared in an Indonesian newspaper last week that portrayed Howard and his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as two copulating Australian wild dogs, known as dingoes. Howard, depicted in the Rakyat Merdeka newspaper on Wednesday as the male, tells Downer: "I want Papua."

Downer on Saturday issued a statement Saturday condemning the Yudhoyono cartoon and saying newspaper editors have responsibility to consider the consequences of what they publish.

Australia's embassy in Jakarta, which was targeted by a suicide bomber in 2004, was also worried about that cartoon, Downer said.

"They have concerns that there will be a negative reaction by the Indonesians to material like this which is extremely offensive," he told reporters Saturday.

Indonesia has protested Australia's move to grant asylum to 36 adults and seven children who arrived from Papua by boat in January and claimed they faced persecution if they returned.

Jakarta withdrew its ambassador from Canberra two weeks ago over the controversy, which has rekindled memories of strained relations in 1999 when Australia supported East Timor's ballot for independence.

Jakarta protested to the newspaper editor that the cartoon "is not helpful and has no value in terms of reducing public tension between the two countries," the Indonesian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.