Jakarta. Indonesia is still shying away from explicitly condemning US’ strikes on Iran as seen in Monday’s hearing between Foreign Affairs Minister Sugiono and the country’s lawmakers.

Sugiono kicked off the week by meeting the House of Representatives for talks that zeroed in on foreign affairs, including the Israel-Iran war. Indonesia immediately issued a statement that strongly criticized Israel for launching an assault on Tehran on June 13. The conflict later saw a major escalation when the US entangled itself to the conflict by striking Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. 

It took about a week before Sugiono finally commented on the US’ involvement. At Monday's hearing at the House, Sugiono criticized Israel’s June 13 attacks once again before briefly talking about Washington joining the war. 

“The situation got worse by June 22’s military operations on Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. There were claims that this operation was intended to maintain regional stability. It had raised the regional tension,” Sugiono told the House members, alluding to the US’ raids.

Sugiono went on to say that he was in Istanbul with his counterparts from other Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) nations when the attack occurred.

“We have just wrapped up our first session, but the very next day, the American military struck Iran,” he said -- making it the only time he explicitly referred to the US’ bombings during the publicly broadcasted hearing.

He stated that Indonesia “condemns all sorts of attacks that violate the sovereignty of any country, specifically those made by Israel.”

"We condemn attacks on nuclear facilities. The international law explicitly forbids attacks on nuclear sites as they can pose risks to the people and planet. It will place the nuclear non-proliferation regime and treaty in jeopardy,” the chief diplomat told the lawmakers, again, without specifically mentioning Washington.

In a door-step interview later that day, the Jakarta Globe asked Sugiono to clarify whether his statement on denouncing the attacks on nuclear sites was also directed to the US. He only responded with: “I’ve already given my statement [at the hearing].”

As Indonesia tries to be careful with its words, Jakarta is inching closer to US President Donald Trump’s tariff deadline. The Southeast Asian country currently has 9 days before the 32 percent tariff comes into force on its US-bound goods unless Trump changes his mind. The government has been negotiating with Trump’s team in hopes for some changes to the import duty hikes. Chief Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto, who led the negotiations, recently claimed that the US had welcomed Indonesia’s proposal for a “fair and square bilateral trade” without going into more details on the talks progress. 

A fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire has also been in place after 12 days of war.

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