Jakarta (ANTARA) – Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan here on Saturday to discuss Islamophobia and the reformation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).”Our two countries share the same principled position. We want freedom for Palestine. We want peace in Afghanistan and respect the rights of Afghan women,” Marsudi said in a joint press statement with Fidan. Indonesia and Turkey will continue to work together to advance issues of common interests, she added. Indonesia and Turkey are two leading emerging countries with significant influences in their respective region, she added. “We are also fellow members of the G20, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the MIKTA (a cross-regional grouping that comprises Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia),” she said. Minister Fidan, who was visiting Indonesia for the first time since taking office in June, said that the meeting discussed rising global challenges, including Islamophobia and attacks against the Quran. The world has been shocked by the burning of the Quran, which has occurred repeatedly in Sweden, with the latest incident recorded in a mosque in Stockholm during Eid al-Adha last June. The action drew widespread condemnation from various countries and international organizations, including Turkey, Indonesia, the European Union, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. “We also discussed regional issues, ranging from Afghanistan, the Middle East, Palestine, Rohingya, and the reformation of the United Nations Security Council,” Fidan said. The Indonesian government is pushing for the reformation of the UNSC, citing the importance of Asian and African representation in the council. Russia, one of the five permanent members of the UNSC along with the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom, has also underlined the need for reforming UNSC. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last month said that Moscow will seek to expand UNSC membership to give more representation to Asian, African, and Latin American countries, and break what he described as “Western dominance.”

Source: Antara News Agency