We Can't Fight Haze Alone : Indonesia's Foregin Minster

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has said that fighting the haze could not be done by Indonesia alone and stressed that it was a transnational problem, requiring the cooperation from countries in the region.
Mr Natalegawa was speaking on the current haze situation, after Singapore and Malaysia pressed Jakarta to take action on the haze.
“What I want to emphasise is that the haze is a classic example of a challenge that is transboundary in nature and that cannot be solved simply by one country,” he said.
“Countries in the region should be working hand-in-hand in addressing this particular problem or challenge.”
According to The Straits Times, his ministry holds regular media briefings on Fridays. However, he often does not attend the sessions but turned up yesterday to talk about an Asean summit in Hanoi next week.
He also spoke about his conversation with Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo over the telephone after Mr Yeo called him on Friday morning to express concern about the worsening haze situation, and offer Singapore’s assistance to help put out some of the fires in Sumatra.
“During the course of that general conversation, we exchanged views about developments with respect to the haze that is affecting some countries in the region. Naturally, Minister George Yeo expressed his government’s concern,” he said.
He said that he had mentioned to Mr Yeo that besides Singapore, Indonesians in the Riau province were also affected by the haze.
Mr Natalegawa went on to explain that this year’s haze should be seen as an ‘exception to the norm’, noting that Indonesia had not had land fires of the current scale in the last three or four years and the country’s efforts to stamp out land clearance by burning, some of which supported by foreign countries, had worked.
According to the same paper, he had compared the current haze situation to recent wildfires in Russia where acrid smog engulfed Moscow in August, in his conversation with Mr Yeo.
“If we look at the case of Moscow, even in a metropolitan area like this it is difficult to control the fires, what more in such a vast place like Indonesia,” said Mr Natalegawa.
A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said that in Mr Yeo’s phone call to Mr Natalegawa, he informed him that the PSI went over 100 on Thursday and cases of respiratory problems including asthma had increased significantly.
MFA added that both ministers agreed that bilateral cooperation had helped reduce the haze problem in the last three years and could help ameliorate the current situation despite the dry weather.
The phone call was the second made in two days, after Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Yaacob Ibrahim called his Indonesian counterpart Gusti Hatta on Thursday, after the air quality in Singapore was reported to hit the unhealthy range.
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), the haze situation has worsened since Wednesday. The three-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit a high of 108 on Thursday evening, which is considered unhealthy.
NEA added that the haze situation is expected to persist as the prevailing winds will continue to blow smoke haze from Sumatra to Singapore. Watch it more at http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/10/22/indonesia-to-address-haze-problem/