REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The United States of America's Ambassador to Indonesia, Robert Blake, said Indonesia is a strategic and important partner of the United States in preserving peace and prosperity globally.
"Indonesia is growing into a strategic and important partner of the US and to the world," Ambassador Blake said after delivering a lecture on, "US-Indonesia: A partnership of Promise and Opportunity," at the Adhiyana Auditorium of the Antara News Agency office, here on Monday.
Moreover, Blake noted that during the first two and half years of his service in Indonesia, he had seen many improvements in the country's development that would help Indonesia strengthen its role in preserving peace and prosperity in the world.
"President Jokowi (Joko Widodo) has a very good program to strengthen Indonesia further, particularly on the economic front, and we hope that after that we would see greater Indonesian leadership on very important priorities in helping to preserve peace and prosperity," he stated.
During his lecture, Ambassador Blake also spoke about Indonesia's achievement as the 11th largest country in the world, which has sent peace-keeping forces on the United Nations' (U.N.'s) missions.
Blake added that the commitment of Indonesia to double its number of the peace-keeping personnel to four thousand by the end of 2019 is indicative of the strong commitment of the country to contribute to preserving world peace.
"Moreover, the Indonesian peace-keeping personnel are well-known as a brave force, who are willing to be posted to difficult areas, such as the Republic of Central Africa, Congo, Sudan, and Lebanon," he noted.
Since 2015 to mid-2016, Indonesia had sent around 2,800 peace-keeping personnel to join the U.N.'s missions.
But since 1957, Indonesia had sent 30 thousand personnel to participate in more than 40 missions of the U.N. in many parts of the world.
The lecture was organized in a bid to offer farewell to Ambassador Blake, who will leave on Tuesday after serving his country in Indonesia since the end of 2013.
The event was hosted by Antara News Agency Chief Executive Officer Meidyatama Suryodiningrat and Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) Founder Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal, and attended by some other foreign ambassadors to Indonesia, namely South Korean Ambassador Cho Tae-young and European Union's Ambassador Vincent Guerend.
The lecture also drew representatives of Indonesian government institutions and thousands of university students based in Jakarta.
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