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Keating to visit

Indonesia

CANBERRA: Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating will travel to Indonesia next month for talks with President Suharto ahead of November's APEC summit, Keating said on Tuesday.

It will be Keating's fifth visit to Australia's northern neighbour since becoming prime minister in 1991.

Keating is scheduled to meet Suharto on September 17, after arriving in Indonesia from the Papua New Guinea capital, Port Moresby, following his attendance at the South Pacific Forum and Papua New Guinea's 20th independence anniversary celebrations.

"I will meet President Suharto to discuss the APEC meeting in Osaka in November as well as bilateral and regional issues," Keating said in a statement.

Keating and Suharto are expected to meet on the resort island of Bali, although that has not yet been confirmed, a spokesman said.

Keating has said no country is more important to Australia than Indonesia.

Suharto, however, has not visited Australia since 1975, months before Indonesian troops invaded the former Portuguese colony of East Timor.

Leaders of the 18-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group are due to hold their third annual summit in the Japanese city of Osaka in November to discuss trade liberalisation.

APEC groups Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.-Reuter