The Government Questions Why Saudi Arabia Forbids Its Citizens From Visiting Indonesia All

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Minister of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister) Retno Marsudi questions Arab reasons Saudi prohibits its citizens from visiting Indonesia.

According to him, if the reason is due to Covid-19, many countries are handling it worse than Indonesia.

“Our question is, of course, what is the underlying list the. If the list is related to Covid-19, I think there are many countries that are not included in it list 16, whose Covid-19 condition is much worse than ours,” said Retno after a meeting with Commission I at the DPR RI Building, Jakarta, Tuesday (31/5/2022).

Read also: The Reason Saudi Arabia Forbids Its Citizens To Go To Indonesia

Retno received information about the ban some time ago.

Shortly after receiving the information, his party immediately communicated with the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Indonesia.

In addition, Retno assigned the Indonesian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia to communicate with the Saudi Arabian authorities to ask similar questions.

“And I also communicated with the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia and they promised to see (review),” he said.

In addition, Retno said that the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister planned to visit Indonesia.

Read also: Saudi Arabia Bans Its Citizens From Visiting Indonesia and 15 Other Countries

The moment of the visit will also be used by Indonesia to discuss the ban issued by Saudi Arabia.

Even if the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister finally cancels his visit, Indonesia still has another opportunity, namely at the holding of the meeting of Foreign Ministers at the G20 in early July 2022.

“Where the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia will also be present. So I will use the opportunity to discuss this issue,” he said.

Saudi Arabian citizens are prohibited from traveling to 16 countries because of the Covid-19 cases in those countries.

This was confirmed by the Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat), Saturday (21/5/2022), reported by the Saudi Gazette.

The list of countries includes Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, and Venezuela. Indonesia was also included in the list.

Read also: Minister of Religion: Hajj Services in Saudi are Ready

The Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat) emphasized that the validity period of passports for Saudi citizens who wish to travel to non-Arab countries must be more than six months.

Jawazat explained about the travel requirements of Saudis abroad in a statement on his Twitter account.

According to him, the validity period of a passport must be more than three months to travel to Arab countries.

Meanwhile, for citizens who travel to other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the validity period of their ID cards must be more than three months.

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