Jakarta. Indonesia announced Thursday morning, Jakarta time, that it had finally decided to evacuate its citizens from Iran after raising the alert level for its nationals in the country at war.

Exchanges of airstrikes have continued for the sixth day since Israel bombarded its longstanding enemy Iran last week. As many as 386 Indonesians currently reside in Iran. Most of these people are studying in the country’s seventh-largest metropolis, Qom. In a video statement recorded from Russia, Foreign Affairs Minister Sugiono said that he had decided to raise the alert status to level 1 following the latest developments in the Israel-Iran conflict. 

“Our citizens are at risk. … Over the past two days, Israel’s attacks have grown more intense. They are not only targeting the military, but also civilians. That’s why I have decided to raise our Tehran embassy’s alert status to level 1,” Sugiono told reporters. 

“And we shall conduct the contingency plan and evacuate the Indonesian citizens. I have contacted Iran's neighboring countries so they would let our citizens easily cross their borders during the evacuation. Because it is getting even more dangerous," Sugiono said.

The diplomat did not give the specific timeframe of when these evacuees would depart from Iran or set foot in Indonesia. Just a day earlier, the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s citizen protection director, Judha Nugrah,a told the press that Indonesia would wait until the crisis escalated before it began its evacuation processes. A level 2 alert status had long been in place for Indonesians in Iran. Over the past year, the Indonesian government had told its nationals to leave Iran on their own if possible, according to a circular on the level 2 alert status. 

Iran has also promised to stand ready to help with the evacuation process, according to its envoy Mohammad Boroujerdi.

Sugiono intends to fly to Istanbul later this week for an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting on the Iran crisis. Indonesia has “strongly condemned” Israel’s attack on Iran, while calling it an “unlawful act [that] undermines the very foundations of international law”.

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