The visit produced the usual paperwork. Sisi came at the end of an Asian tour that began in Seoul on 6 October and took in Malaysia. It was his first trip to Indonesia since 2015; Prabowo, by the count in the joint statement, has been to Egypt three times since December 2024. The four memoranda signed in Jakarta cover an action plan for the strategic partnership declared in Cairo in April 2025, visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic, service and special passports, statistics, and fisheries. Useful, but modest. The real business was Gaza, where the two presidents agreed to keep working together on humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
On Gaza, Egypt holds cards Indonesia does not, it borders the Strip. It has mediated between Israel and Hamas for years, and its peace treaty with Israel gives it a line of communication Jakarta has never had and, for domestic reasons, is unlikely to want. An Indonesian official planning an aid convoy or a field hospital needs to know which permits matter and who can hold them up. And this, Cairo knows. Egypt is no neutral facilitator, though, indeed. Whatever happens in Gaza happens on its border, and Cairo treats any movement of Palestinians into Sinai as a red line. Jakarta agrees with that position. It also means Egypt cares a great deal about how reconstruction and security in Gaza are organised, and is well placed to shape both. Agreement on Palestinian rights in principle settles very little about who decides what on the ground.
The two governments already sit together. Egypt was among the eight Muslim-majority states, Indonesia included, whose foreign ministers jointly announced in January that they were joining the US-led Board of Peace. Sisi and Prabowo last met at the BRICS summit in New Delhi on 12 September. Coordinating inside the Board, they would carry more weight than either could alone. Inside the Board, however, Egypt is a frontline state and a mediator, while Indonesia is a distant contributor. When the two disagree, I would not bet on Jakarta’s view prevailing.
So how much Jakarta control comes attached to Egyptian help ? Since February his government has said Indonesia would leave the Board of Peace if membership failed to advance Palestinian independence. Meaning it requires Jakarta to keep judging what it can actually influence from inside. Cairo’s reading of the situation will help. The call is still Indonesia’s to make, and making it independently gets harder the more closely Jakarta works with a partner whose interests only partly overlap with its own. Then there are the Palestinians themselves. Nothing agreed between Cairo and Jakarta gives either capital authority over Palestine’s political future. In Cairo last year the presidents backed reconstruction and a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders; in Jakarta, Prabowo called a two-state solution the only path to peace in the region. If those words are to mean anything for an actual operation, Palestinians need a say in how foreign troops and money are used in Gaza. Away from Gaza the relationship is thinner than the speeches suggest, though it is growing. Trade reached about US$1.7 billion in 2024, according to Egypt’s statistics agency, most of it Indonesian exports, leaving Jakarta a surplus of over US$1.3 billion. In Jakarta the two sides talked up an economic partnership agreement and a joint investment fund, and set a target of US$5 billion in trade, roughly three times the current figure.
A smaller detail says more. In June, three Indonesian makers of medical equipment signed memoranda with Egyptian distributors at a health trade fair in Cairo, the Indonesian embassy reported. Other firms were still waiting on product registration and import permits. Companies like these are the partnership’s real constituency. They will notice whether paperwork moves any faster after a presidential visit, and anyone judging whether the visit mattered should watch the same thing. Sisi is courting several Asian capitals at once, and Jakarta has a platform of its own. Indonesia chairs the D-8 in 2026-2027 and Egypt is a member, although the summit planned for April was postponed because of tensions in the Middle East. The two countries do not need to agree on every dispute for that forum to be useful.
What the relationship lacks is ordinary bureaucratic contact. For now it runs on presidential visits and personal warmth; Prabowo told Sisi to think of Indonesia as his second home. Ministries that talk to each other every month would give Jakarta earlier warning when Cairo’s priorities drift away from its own. On Gaza, that means consulting before announcing. Indonesia has a habit of offering troops first, as with the 8,000 pledged to the stabilisation force in February, and settling the terms afterwards. Once people or money are committed, the rules they work under are largely set by others. Egypt can take Indonesia further into Middle Eastern diplomacy than it could go alone. Prabowo’s government has yet to say how much steering it will accept in return. Whatever it decides, the yardstick should be the one both presidents claim to share: Palestinians staying on their land and deciding their own future.
