Indonesia hails US move to lift travel warning

May 26, 2008, 9:32 GMT

Jakarta - Indonesia on Monday welcomed the decision by the US government to lift its eight-year travel warning for the country and Washington's assessment that security had improved in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

'We have long waited for such a decision,' presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said. 'Hopefully, this decision would help boost the number of tourist visitors from the United States to Indonesia.'

'Many US and world figures have paid a visit to Indonesia. They have proven themselves that Indonesia is a peaceful country,' Djalal said, adding, 'Threats of terrorism can happen anywhere, any time and attack whosoever.'

The United States on Sunday lifted the travel warning placed on Indonesia after a string of deadly terrorist attacks there.

'The US has lifted the warning due to objective improvements by Indonesia in its current security situation,' Cameron Hume, US ambassador to Indonesia, said a statement. 'It will lead to more people-to-people ties between the two countries.'

Hume said Indonesia had not experienced a major terrorist attack since 2005 and 'the government of Indonesia has disrupted, arrested and prosecuted numerous terrorist elements.'

Last month, two leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, a regional terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda, were sentenced to 15-year jail terms.

The group seeks to turn the archipelago into an Islamic state and has been blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, most of whom were foreign tourists.

It has also been accused of several simultaneous church bombings across Indonesia on Christmas Eve 2000, another bombing on Bali in 2005, the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003 and an attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta in 2004.

Indonesia police have arrested around 400 militants since 2002, severely damaging the group's ability to operate.