U.S. President Bush to Visit Indonesia, Singapore Next Month

By Arijit Ghosh

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush will travel to Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, and Singapore next month when he attends the 14th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders meeting in Vietnam.

Bush will be in Hanoi for the meeting on Nov. 18 and Nov. 19, the White House said yesterday in a statement posted on its Web site.

Bush's visit to Indonesia will be the culmination of high- level Western leaders meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta this year. The U.S. has described Indonesia as a ``voice of moderation in the Islamic world'' and that nation's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the country on March 15. Her visit was followed by Tony Blair, the first British prime minister to visit Indonesia since Margaret Thatcher in 1985.

Yudhoyono, Indonesia's first directly elected president, has cracked down on terrorism and corruption and last year signed a peace accord with rebels in the western province of Aceh, ending a conflict that killed more than 12,000 people in nearly three decades of fighting.

To contact the reporter on this story: Arijit Ghosh in Jakarta at aghosh@bloomberg.net .