REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Indonesian government should be cautious while taking a stance over the conflict in Crimea, Guspiabri Sumowigeno, the director of Center for Indonesian National Policy Studies (CINAPS) stated.
"We should see this issue as more than just a rivalry between two big nations. I suggest that the government takes a balanced stance and accommodates the views of both the parties," he stated here on Wednesday.
He pointed out that Indonesia has not taken any stance regarding the referendum in Ukraine's Crimea, majority of whose population wanted to join Russia.
The current outgoing government should not leave the Crimea issue to the next government, he commented.
Russia intervened in the Crimean peninsula after the fall of Ukraine's pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 February.
The national parliament in Kiev ruled the referendum unconstitutional, and earlier on Saturday, voted in favor of disbanding the regional assembly.
At the United Nations, 13 members of the Security Council backed a resolution that called for all nations to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and condemned the referendum as illegal.
Russia has vetoed a draft UN resolution criticizing Sunday's secession referendum in Ukraine's Crimea region - the only Security Council member to vote against the measure.
Western powers criticized Russia's veto over the referendum, which will ask the Crimeans if they would want to rejoin Russia.
Meanwhile, early in March 2014, the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry issued a statement expressing deep concern over the worsening situation in Ukraine, which had escalated from what had initially been an internal political instability within the country to an international crisis, which threatens not only the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but also risks raising tensions in the relations between the affected countries.
Minister Marty M. Natalegawa pointed out that Indonesia reaffirmed its principle and its consistent position on respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states as a fundamental principle of relations among nations.
"Indonesia calls upon all concerned parties to exercise utmost restraint, manage the crisis, promote the peaceful settlement of the situation in Ukraine, and to consistently uphold respect for international law," he explained.
Indonesia called upon the United Nations Security Council, including the permanent members of the Security Council, to shoulder its responsibility in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security in responding to the crisis in Ukraine, including exercising the possibility of dispatching a special envoy of the UN Secretary General to the affected region.
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