Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely claimed yesterday that Israel maintains secret relations with Indonesia, Quds Press reported Israeli media saying. She also claimed that a representative of the Israeli foreign ministry had recently visited Jakarta.

” There were secret communications with Indonesia, with which we have no diplomatic relations, and there were understandings that they crudely violated, and we therefore prevented her from entering” the statement said regarding the banning of Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi from entering the West Bank.

Hotovely added: “It was a violation of diplomatic code, and so the most honourable thing is to honour the code, and when you commit a violation, do not be surprised that you are preventing yourself from visiting the Palestinian Authority.”

Marsudi planned to take part in an inauguration of an honorary Indonesian consulate in Ramallah and to meet with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and PA Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki.

The PA’s foreign ministry condemned the Israeli prevention of Marsudi from entering the West Bank, but Hotovely said that the “secret understandings” stipulate that any Indonesian official heading to the PA territories must at first meet Israeli foreign ministry officials.

(MEMO)