REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Saudi's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud will meet a number of interfaith leaders in Jakarta on Friday, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said.
"(The Saudi's King) will meet interfaith leaders after Friday prayers. The meeting will be held at the State Palace or at Raffles Hotel," the minister said on Thursday evening.
Raffles Hotel is where King Salman stays in Jakarta. King Salman is on a state visit in Indonesia from March 1 to March 3. He will leave for a vacation to Bali on March 4 and stay in the Indonesian tourist resort island of Bali until March 9.
He is travelling to Indonesia with a delegation of 1,500 people, including 14 ministers and 25 princes. Apart from Raffles Hotel, the Saudi king's party members also stay at JW Mariot and Ritz Calton.
"The President will remain to be the host who invited him. The Saudi king wants to meet not only Islamic figures but also interfaith leaders," Minister Lukman said.
On Thursday, King Salman met with a number of Islamic leaders but only three of them made statements, namely Chairman of the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) Ma'ruf Amin, Muhammadiyah Chairman Yunahar Ilyas and Muslim Cleric Habib Luthfi from Pekalongan.
"I think it (the meeting) is very important. We hope relations between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia in the future will become closer," Ma'ruf Amin said in the Presidential Palace compounds.
Ma'ruf said the Saudi king's visit to Indonesia is monumental because he plays a role as a custodian of two Holy Mosques -- Al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.
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