Indonesian President-elect and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, who arrived in Türkiye on Monday, met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Complex in the capital Ankara on Tuesday. The two men did not hold a news conference after their closed-to-press meeting.
Subianto was welcomed by Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler in an official ceremony earlier, one day after he met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara.
Subianto was elected in February and will take over the presidency in October.
Türkiye and Indonesia trace back their relations to the 16th century when the Sultanate of Aceh sought Ottoman assistance against the Portuguese. In the 20th century, Türkiye became one of the first countries to recognize Indonesia’s independence and opened its embassy in Jakarta in 1957. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan first visited Indonesia in 2005 while he was prime minister, in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. In 2017, outgoing president Joko Widodo paid a state visit to Türkiye where the two countries signed two major agreements for cooperation. Since then, relations strengthened. The two countries are partners in a number of international bodies from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to the MIKTA grouping of countries that also includes Mexico, South Korea and Australia.
Indonesia is also one of the founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and since 2017, Türkiye has been a Sectoral Dialogue Partner of ASEAN.
In an interview with Daily Sabah in March, Indonesia’s Ambassador to Ankara Achmad Rizal Purnama stated that relations between the two countries would further enhance under President-elect Subianto. He described Türkiye and Indonesia as two leaders of the Global South as the world undergoes difficult times including the war in Gaza.
