Jakarta 'recalling Canberra envoy'
(CNN) -- Indonesia's ambassador to Australia is being called back to Indonesia after completing barely half of his three year term, according to a report in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
But the Indonesian embassy in Canberra told CNN on Wednesday that the ambassador was still in the country.
Quoting a spokesman for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the report said Imron Cotan would be replaced by someone who would better fit the "new relationship" between the nations.
"Whoever replaces him will definitely have to fit the new relationship and the new style of relations that have evolved between Indonesia and Australia and particularly the warm relations between President Yudhoyono and (Australian Prime Minister) John Howard," the president's spokesman Dino Patti Jalal said, according to the report.
"Australian-Indonesian relations have changed quite substantially recently and whoever succeeds Ambassador Cotan will have to fit into that new mould," Mr Jalal said.
The spokesman did not reveal who would replace Ambassador Cotan.
Cotan, according to the report, had developed a reputation in Australia as an outspoken diplomat, disliked by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
On a visit to Australia in April, Yudhoyono signaled his desire to improve the historically strained relationship between Indonesia and Australia.
Most recently the relationship came under pressure over the conviction, by a Bali court, of Australian beauty student Schapelle Corby on drug trafficking charges. (Full story)
