United States President Barack Obama would visit Indonesia in mid-2010, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajasa said in Jakarta Sunday.

“The American president would visit Indonesia in mid-2010,” Hatta said quoting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as saying.

The two heads of state met each other when attending the two weeks conference of United Nations Forum for Climate Change (UNFCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark,
Presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal has previously said that Obama planned to visit Indonesia sometime next year.

According to Dino, Obama wanted to stay longer in Indonesia and bring along his wife Michelle Obama and his two children Malia and Sasha to show them where he had lived in Jakarta during his childhood.

President Yudhoyono and Obama initiated a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Singapore.

Obama, who in the history of the US became the first African-American president, said he has an emotional attachment to people in Indonesia which developed during his childhood stay in Menteng area, Jakarta, and that he also had an Indonesian step father.

After President Yudhoyono returned from several European countries in December 13-20, 2009, he gave a 30 minutes briefing to a number of ministers at Halim Perdana Kusuma Airport, Jakarta.

Source : Antara