May 26, 2005 - 2:05 AM

Indonesia to get $400 mln of U.S. tsunami relief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indonesia will receive $400 million in U.S. aid, nearly half of the total tsunami relief pledged by the U.S. government, according to a joint statement issued after President Bush met with Indonesia's president on Wednesday.

The United States has promised a total of $857 million for tsunami-related aid to help countries hit by the giant waves in December that killed 228,000 people.

In a joint Oval Office appearance, Bush praised Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his leadership through the disaster.

"You showed good, great courage," Bush said. "And it's been our honor to work with you to help save lives and to bring people, order out of the chaos that ensued after the terrible disaster."

The two countries pledged to strengthen military, education, economic and counterterrorism cooperation.

Bush, who is pressing for greater democratic reforms in the Middle East and greater understanding of the United States in the Muslim world, said Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, could play a key role in achieving these goals.

"Indonesia will play a large role, and a significant role, in helping us understand that great religions should co-exist in a peaceful way," Bush said.

Indonesia intends to send Islamic scholars to the United States to promote inter-faith dialogue, the joint statement said.

Yudhoyono, a U.S.-trained former general who last year became the first directly elected president of Indonesia, said he would like to move forward on normalizing military relations with the United States.

Washington has previously said fuller military ties required accounting for violence in East Timor in 1999 and prosecution of the killers of two Americans in remote Papua in 2002.

Indonesia is an ally in the U.S. war against terrorism, but the government faces a population that opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I do hope that in the future we, we are moving ahead for fully normalizations of the military-to-military relations," Yudhoyono said, pledging to make more military reforms.

Indonesia and the United States will resume bilateral energy consultations "after an eight-year hiatus," the joint statement said. The first round will be on Thursday and participants are to report back to the two presidents before the APEC summit later this year, the statement said.