Jakarta, IO – Singapore is starting to prepare to face the risk of exposure to haze due to forest and land fires (karhutla) in Sumatra. Indonesian Ambassador Suryopratomo, popularly known as Tommy, said that Indonesia and Singapore would collaborate to overcome this problem.
“Indonesia and Singapore have agreed not to blame each other when conditions like this occur, but to find a way out together,” said Tommy, per CNNIndonesia, Saturday (9/9).
Although he has not specified the form of cooperation that will be carried out, Tommy said that forest and land fires are indeed a logical impact of El Nino .
“But this challenge is not only faced by Indonesia,” said Tommy.
On September 2-3, the National Environment Agency (NEA) of Singapore detected nearly 50 fire hotspots in Sumatra. Even though the haze still seems far from Singapore, they predicted that the same situation will occur in the coming weeks.
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Several months ago, Indonesian and Singaporean officials also met to discuss this issue. Singapore’s Second Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamad Maliki Osman previously said that the governments of Singapore and Indonesia will continue to work together to overcome the cross-border haze problem.
“We have continued to maintain good working relations with Indonesia,” said Maliki. (un)