United States diplomats apologised after the head of Indonesia’s armed forces was denied entry to the U.S., even though he had been invited by his American counterpart.
Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, Commander-in-Chief of the Indonesian National Defense Forces was invited by Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to attend a conference on countering violent extremism which takes place on October 23 and 24.
Shortly before Gatot and his wife were to depart Indonesia for the U.S. they were told that U.S. Customs and Border Patrol would deny them entry.
Erin McKee, the deputy U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, apologised in person to Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Monday morning.
Responding, Ms. Marsudi said: “I’ve said that it was not enough. We still need an explanation of why the incident happened.”
Read the full story on the U.S.-Indonesia diplomatic spat on our sister site, The Defense Post: