Did Indonesia minister shake first lady’s hand?

All of Indonesia is welcoming President Barack Obama, but one minister has a decidedly less friendly message.

Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring told followers on Twitter he ried to avoid shaking the first lady’s hand. As a conservative Muslim, he usually avoids contact with women outside his family.

Sembiring was in a receiving line that greeted the Obamas in Jakarta on Tuesday — a homecoming of sorts for the president who spent part of his childhood here.

Footage of the event showed Sembiring smiling broadly as he reached with both hands to grasp Michelle’s. But later he said she forced their contact.

He tweeted: “I tried to prevent [being touched] with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me [so] we touched.”

His denial was in a response to tweets from Indonesians who noted the handshake and questioned his long-standing claims that, as a good Muslim, he restricts his contact with women.

Many posts had a “gotchya” quality to them.

One female journalist — who said the minister had refused to shake her hand — gleefully noted that now he would no longer be able to wriggle out of it.

Sembiring has often tweeted controversial comments, including blaming natural disasters on a lack of morality and joking about AIDS.