December 19, 2024
JAKARTA – President Prabowo Subianto is in Egypt for a summit of eight Muslim-majority developing countries grouped under the D8 Organization for Economic Cooperation scheduled for Thursday, an event he dubbed important for Jakarta despite skepticism from analysts who question the group’s strategic bearing.
The President arrived in Cairo on Tuesday evening. He is accompanied by Foreign Minister Sugiono and Cabinet Secretary Maj. Teddy Indra Wijaya.
The D8, also known as Developing 8, is an economic grouping consisting of Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. It was first formed in 1997 to encourage cooperation among developing Islamic countries and create new opportunities.
While the summit is set to discuss economic cooperation and investment, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been projected to cast a dark shadow over the Cairo talks, with three of its members, namely Iran, Egypt and Turkey, having been directly impacted by the conflict over the past year.
“With the current conditions, I’d say the D8 Summit is a significant event, especially since Indonesia will assume the rotating leadership of the group in January,” Prabowo told a press briefing shortly before jetting off from Jakarta.
In Cairo, Prabowo will meet his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in his first state visit to the Mideast country. “This is the first time an Indonesian president [has visited] Egypt since 2013. Egypt is our close friend, a strategic partner for Indonesia and an important country in the Middle East,” he said.
Analysts have said that the current precarious geopolitical landscape in the Middle East is a strong indication that no significant economic opportunities or investment are likely to come from Egypt this week, with most engagements likely to be political or security-heavy in nature.
Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto has said that the government was not expecting any major economic gains from the summit because the forum’s main objective was to unite efforts to resolve the Gaza crisis.
“The D8 is to align steps to face the global geopolitical situation today. Of course, this includes what is happening in the Middle East, in Gaza,” he said, as quoted by kompas.com.
Iran has said that its President Masoud Pezeshkian will take part in the summit on Thursday, an attendance considered rare as no Iranian presidents have visited Egypt in more than a decade.
Tehran and Cairo have had a tense relationship in the past decades but have recently stepped up their diplomatic ties in a bid to navigate through the Gaza crisis.
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Against this backdrop, Prabowo’s attendance at the summit could offer a chance to advance Indonesia’s position in the Middle East, analysts said, while acknowledging the limitations and lackluster prestige of the D8 as a multilateral forum.
“He will meet with his Iranian counterpart and elites of Egypt and Turkey. This is important and holds a strategic value for Prabowo in his Middle Eastern diplomacy,” international relations expert Ahmad Rizky M. Umar from Aberystwyth University said on Tuesday.
“It’s politically tactical to set up Indonesia’s strategy in the region and elevate its influence in informal ways, but nothing beyond that,” he said.
Prabowo has so far not revealed the details of his Middle East strategy, but has shown much interest in the crisis there, for instance by frequently visiting the region and appointing a deputy foreign minister to specifically handle Mideast affairs.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) executive director Yose Rizal Damuri said that while the Cairo forum will feature some of the region’s elites, expectations should still be kept low that the talks, or the grouping in general, could significantly boost Indonesia’s influence.
“The Middle Eastern countries themselves are struggling to maintain their own influence. Despite everything, they can still only do very little for Gaza,” Yose said on Wednesday.
“We can see that Prabowo is using every opportunity to champion the Global South, including by attending the D8, but it has unfortunately sent a signal that he has abandoned ASEAN, which in many ways is a much more strategic multilateral platform,” he said.
Prabowo’s D8 attendance has also been conspicuous for the fact that he and Foreign Minister Sugiono would consequentially be skipping this week’s talks in Thailand to discuss Myanmar, a widely observed ASEAN meeting scheduled for later this week.
Prabowo will fly to Malaysia to meet with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim after his Egypt trip.