Asked if the letter would be released he said: ‘‘We will see, of course it will be discussed’’. Mr Pasha was speaking outside a meeting of a number of the President’s ministers at the palace on Tuesday. On the way into the meeting, Dr Yudhoyono said his country and Australia should take ‘‘the right steps so that what happened some time ago won’t be repeated’’. He said the future relationship between Indonesia and Australia should be built on “mutual trust” and Indonesia needed to regain that trust, “particularly … after the tapping incident”. The meeting, which will not be attended by Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa or Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, was called specifically to discuss “relations with Australia” he said.

The President took to Twitter again on Tuesday to heighten interest in the issue, posting a picture of himself reading a letter with the comment: "President re-reads a reply from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott for a limited cabinet meeting at 3pm this afternoon." Meanwhile, Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has confirmed the dispute with Australia has accelerated his country's desire to source beef from other countries. Mr Gita also said that all communications between the two countries over broader bilateral trade issues had ceased. For the moment, Australian and Indonesian officials are only talking to each other in multilateral forums such as the World Trade Organisation.

Until now, Australia, which is free of foot and mouth disease, has been almost the exclusive supplier of beef to the Indonesian market. The live cattle trade alone is worth $174 million. But last week Mr Gita asked the Parliament to pass laws allowing for beef to be imported from India and Brazil despite the danger of the deadly disease. For the first time on Tuesday, the minister confirmed he had made the request because of the sense of betrayal over Australia’s eavesdropping of the private conversations of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife, Ani, in 2009. "I think you can attribute some of that or a lot of it to the unfortunate incident that took place," Mr Gita said. Mr Gita was the first Indonesian minister to comment on the row since last week.

He said it had prompted Indonesia to look again at importing beef from “foot and mouth free zones” within countries which are otherwise affected. “There are other places [other than Australia] that I think could help us with our food security aspirations. We’re looking at those as possibilities,” he said. He said had asked the Parliament to look at legislation which, as it stands, “I think, unfortunately limits us to only importing from certain places”. He said he would agree to imports from countries such as Brazil and India “to the extent that we can assure ourselves that it’s safe”. On the broader incident, Mr Gita said it was a matter of trust betrayed and had “affected the psychology, the sentiment, of our people”.

“The reason for our concern at the moment is quite easily explicable. And you as a human being, I think would understand it — if someone that you trust would do, you know, would do whatever that’s been described … We’ve always considered the Indonesia Australia relationship as, bilaterally, way up there in terms of the degree of importance and I’m sure this is reciprocated … I think the view … reflects upon a lack of trust.” Foreign Minister Natalegawa, who has been highly critical of the Abbott response to the eavesdropping revelations last week, is not attending Mr Yudhoyono's cabinet meeting because he is not in the country. Defence Minister Yusgiantoro is also away. However, Djoko Suyanto, the co-ordinating minister for law, security and politics, and the man negotiating with Scott Morrison over boats policy, attended, along with Vice-President Boediono, the head of state intelligence agency BIN, Marciano Norman, ambassador to Australia Nadjib Riphat Kesoema and a number of advisers. Loading The meeting was expected to go into the evening Australian time.

A number of temporary boycotts against Australian interests, including police action against people smugglers and co-operation on cyber crime remain in place.