Indonesian president refuses to pay $1 billion for Trump peace council membership

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who is facing criticism in his country for his decision to join the Peace Council established by his US counterpart Donald Trump, has stressed that his country won’t pay $1 billion for permanent membership.

Subianto said in a statement posted on the presidency’s YouTube channel on Sunday that Jakarta had only committed to sending peacekeepers as part of the initiative.

The Peace Council was established after the Trump administration, along with Qatar and Egypt, brokered a ceasefire in October to end the two-year Gaza war.

Countries seeking permanent membership would have to pay $1 billion, which has drawn criticism that the council could become a version of the UN Security Council but with the resolution given to countries in exchange for money.

Subianto has been criticized by Islamist groups in Indonesia for joining the council and has pledged to send 8,000 peacekeepers to Gaza.

He attended the inaugural meeting of the Peace Council in Washington last month, but he later announced that he would withdraw from it unless it brought any benefit to the Palestinians or was consistent with Indonesia’s national interests.

“We never said we wanted to contribute $1 billion,” he said in a statement broadcast on his YouTube channel on Sunday.

He stressed that he hadn’t made any financial commitments at all.

Subianto signed a tariff deal with the United States last month but stressed on Sunday that Indonesia could withdraw from any deal if its terms or implementation threatened the national interest.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Fahd Nabil Ahmed Mulashila was quoted by the official news agency Antara as saying that talks with Washington on any peacekeeping mission in Gaza have been frozen.