Jakarta – Newly installed Prime Minister of Timor Leste Xanana Gusmao has congratulated the National Awakening Party (PKB) on its 25th anniversary and praised the Muslim-based party for its contribution to improving the ties between Indonesia and its neighbor and former province.
In his congratulatory message sent to the PKB leadership over the weekend, Xanana said the PKB had contributed to the peace and reconciliation efforts between Indonesia and Timor Leste, which were pioneered by its founding member Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.
"The positive ties between the two countries in large part were contributed to by the vision and hard work of the PKB, which supported peace, reconciliation and mutual respect," Xanana said in a statement quoted by Antara.
Over the weekend, the PKB staged an anniversary event in Surakarta, Central Java, the hometown of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who attended alongside Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto and Speaker of the House of Representatives Puan Maharani, among others.
The PKB was founded in 1998 by a number of senior Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) clerics who believed that a new political party should be set up to accommodate the interests of millions of the organization's members and supporters.
In February 2000, Gus Dur, newly elected as president, visited then-East Timor, when it was a non-self-governing territory under the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and issued an apology for atrocities perpetrated by Indonesian Military forces.