By Helen Clark
The freeze that followed the Bali 9 executions appears to be thawing.
Relations with Indonesia are once again good, according to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who was speaking at the ASEAN talks in Malaysia, where she met with her Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi for the first time since the Bali Nine executions.
Diplomatic ties have resumed, after post-execution statements that things could not be business as usual. Did anyone think that would last? The phone tapping scandal of 2013 (under the previous Labor government Australia had been tapping the phones of varied Indonesian politicians, including one attempt on then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s phone) cooled ties on the Indonesian side, but things thawed, as they tend to. Now Bishop is speaking not only of the two nations’ enduring relations but of her own close relationship with Marsudi. Quoted by Fairfax, Bishop said as much, “Our relationship has always been strong. We have faced challenges from time to time.”
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