Marsudi Meets Foreign Affairs Ministers of MIKTA Member Countries

New York, MINA – Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi attended a meeting of her counterparts from MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey, and Australia) member countries at the Consulate General of Turkey in New York on Friday.

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the 72nd United Nations General Assembly, Antara News rported on Saturday.

Marsudi met her counterparts — Luis Videgaray Caso from Mexico, Mevlut Cavusoglu from Turkey, Kang Kyung-wha from South Korea, and Julie Bishop from Australia — to discuss developments in the situation in each region and the world.

“Next year, Indonesia will be the MIKTA chairman after Turkey ends its term this year,” Marsudi stated in New York on Friday.

MIKTA has seven priority areas comprising counterterrorism and global security, peacekeeping, sustainable development, gender equality, democracy and good governance, energy, and economy and commerce.

Meanwhile, during its chairmanship next year, Indonesia will adopt the theme of fostering a creative economy and contributing to global peace.

Marsudi said several regional issues discussed during the meeting included the crisis in the Korean Peninsula and the refugee crisis in Rakhine State, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

During the MIKTA meeting, routinely held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, the foreign affairs ministers also expressed deep sorrow and sympathy as well as support to the Mexican government over the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that had hit Mexico on Tuesday.

Later, each member country elaborated on activities related to the MIKTA carried out last year.

In the context of MIKTA, Indonesia conveyed that it had hosted interreligious dialog last year.

This year, Indonesia is also carrying out activities involving the media, forum of ambassadors in Jakarta, and also MIKTA Goes to Campus to increase public awareness of MIKTA.

Indonesia will also invite participants from MIKTA member countries to attend a diplomatic training in October.

MIKTA was formed in 2013 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York as a forum of informal partners — Mexico, Indonesia, the Republic of South Korea, Turkey, and Australia — at a meeting of foreign affairs ministers. *T/RS5/RS1)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)