Indonesian President Joko Widodo to visit Papua New Guinea

Indonesian President Joko Widod to visit PNG. 

The president of Republic of Indonesia  Joko Widodo will visit Papua New Guinea on Monday. He will arrive in Port Moresby on Monday for a two-day visit, Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Peter O’Neill  has told media.

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“The President of Indonesia is going to visit our country on a State visit commencing Monday,” he said.

“The request came through our Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Indonesia to us and we have gladly accepted.

“It is timely for the new President of Indonesia to visit our country. We’ve got very strong bilateral relations with Indonesia which is building from strength to strength.

“We will be discussing issues that concern the two countries during that meeting.”

O’Neill called on the people to extend a warm welcome to Widodo “as we do to everybody”.

“We expect the same to be accorded to the President, who is our closest neighbour, the only country that we share a land boundary with,” he said.

Widodo was recently in the spotlight after Australia failed to convince him to grant clemency to two convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on death row. 

The two men were executed with six others last week in Indonesia. 

In the spotlight last week was the concern over PNG people smuggling marijuana across the border to Jayapura in Indonesia.

There are 17 PNG citizens held at the Doja maximum security prison in Sentani serving terms of 10 years or more for various offences, including drug smuggling.