Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi held a very positive meeting with his host, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, when the two met in Jakarta on May 23, the first day of Raisi’s two-day official visit to Indonesia. At President Widodo’s invitation, Raisi arrived with a large political and economic delegation. The meeting of the two heads of state of large Muslim countries, and the signing of 11 cooperation agreements, was described by Tasnim News as a “turning point in bilateral relations.”
One of the agreements signed was on preferential trade. The others involved cooperation in oil and gas, science and technology, supervision of pharmaceutical products and cultural exchanges among other areas. Raisi and Widodo held a broad-ranging discussion on bilateral, regional and international topics in which they seek to deepen their cooperation, Tasnim reported.
Of particular note, Raisi and Widodo announced at their joint press conference yesterday that they have decided to carry out trade in their national currencies, which many nations of the Global Majority are resorting to as they seek alternatives to the dollar system. A specific goal is to raise the volume of bilateral trade to $20 billion.
Raisi also emphasized that cooperating and establishing relations with Muslim states is a foreign policy priority of his administration and expressed the hope that “giant steps” would be taken in expanding relations with Indonesia.
In an op-ed for the Jakarta Post May 22, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stressed the need for unity among Islamic countries “promoting the true image of Islam in the world.” He expressed that the “founding fathers of the historic Bandung Conference (1955) and the proponents of the paradigm of non-alignment decades ago,” opposed any polarization that would “endanger world peace and stability. In the new international context, developing and emerging countries, through cooperation and shared efforts, can play a constructive role in ensuring global peace and stability, including in the areas of food security and energy.” (https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2023/05/22/strengthening-cooperation-between-iran-and-indonesia.html )
