- \n
- Indonesia and Australia held high-level talks on Friday in Jakarta to strengthen security ties and plan to sign a defense cooperation agreement in the coming months.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles discussed strengthening the nations’ relationship.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Both countries aim to sign a “very significant” defense cooperation agreement within two to three months, according to Subianto.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Indonesia and Australia held high-level talks in Jakarta on Friday as the neighboring countries seek to strengthen security ties by signing a defense cooperation agreement in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, who is set to become Indonesia’s next leader, said that he and Australian counterpart Richard Marles discussed ways of maintaining and enhancing the good relationship between the two nations.<\/p>\n
Subianto said that Indonesia and Australia hope to sign a “very significant” defense cooperation agreement within two or three months. No details about the agreement have been provided.<\/p>\n
HERE\u2019S WHY INDONESIA IS MOVING ITS CAPITAL \u2013 AND WHY IT\u2019S SO CONTROVERSIAL<\/strong><\/p>\n
Marles described the pact as “the single deepest and most significant defense cooperation agreement” in the history of the two countries.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Prabowo](\"https:\/\/a57.foxnews.com\/static.foxnews.com\/foxnews.com\/content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/1200\/675\/Indonesia-Leader.jpg?ve=1&tl=1\")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n\n\nIndonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, right, shakes hands with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Feb. 23, 2024.<\/span> (AP Photo\/Achmad Ibrahim)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
“It will be a very significant moment in our bilateral relationship,” Marles said during a joint news conference with Subianto. “Australia and Indonesia have a shared destiny and a shared collective security and that is the basis on which we are moving forward with our own defense planning.”<\/p>\n
Subianto, 72, is a former general who has never held elective office. He emerged as the apparent winner of the Feb. 14 presidential election. If an official count conducted over the next few weeks confirms his victory, he\u2019ll take office in October.<\/p>\n
Marles, who is on a two-day visit to Indonesia, said in a statement before his trip that the two countries have a long history of close cooperation on maritime security and would “share an ambition to further broaden and deepen our defense relationship.”<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s meeting came less than a week after Australian Defense Force Chief Gen. Angus Campbell met with Subianto on Tuesday. The back-to-back visits by two top Australian security officials this week has reflected the importance of Indonesia, the world\u2019s third-largest democracy, to Australia.<\/p>\n
Marles congratulated Subianto on winning the Indonesian presidential election, saying the election has been watched very closely in Australia. When asked about some Australians who are considered to support separatist rebels in Indonesia\u2019s restive Papua region, Marles reiterated that Australia recognizes the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia<\/p>\n
“There is no support for any independence movements,” Marles said, “We support the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia and that includes those provinces being part of Indonesia, no ifs, no buts, and I want to be clear about that.”<\/p>\n
Although Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people, is often presented as one of Australia\u2019s most important neighbors and strategic allies, the relationship hasn’t always been smooth.<\/p>\n
“We are destined to be close neighbors and we are determined to be a good neighbors,” Subianto said. “Historically there are ups and downs, but we consider Australia as our close friend, which always in many critical instances sided with Indonesia.”<\/p>\n
Recent disagreements include allegations of wiretapping by the Australian Signals Directorate in 2013 to monitor the private phone calls of then Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and other senior officials; Indonesia\u2019s use of capital punishment on Australian drug smugglers; and cases of people smuggling.<\/p>\n
In 2017, Indonesia temporarily suspended military cooperation with Australia, including joint training, education, exchanges of officers and visits, over an alleged insult against the Indonesian state ideology Pancasila, a set of vague principles that mandates belief in one God and unity among Indonesia\u2019s population, and the Indonesian military at an Australian military base.<\/p>\n
In September 2021, Indonesia filed a diplomatic protest against Australia for being slow to provide information about its activities in the AUKUS trilateral pact involving the United States and the United Kingdom, including plans for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.<\/p>\n
INDONESIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION EMERGES AS KEY BATTLEGROUND IN US-CHINA RIVALRY<\/strong><\/p>\n
Since 2022, Australia, along with Japan and Singapore, has been a part of the annual Indonesia-U.S. joint combat exercise called Super Garuda Shield, making it the largest since the drills began in 2009.<\/p>\n
The expanded drills are seen by China as a threat. Chinese state media have accused the U.S. of building an Indo-Pacific alliance similar to NATO to limit China\u2019s growing military and diplomatic influence in the region.<\/p>\n
The two ministers also said that they are also discussing the issues of people smuggling and people trafficking.<\/p>\n
“This is a shared challenge for both of our countries and that we need to be working cooperatively,” Marles said.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
[ad_2]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[ad_1] Indonesia and Australia held high-level talks on Friday in Jakarta to strengthen security ties and plan to sign a defense cooperation agreement in the coming months. Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles discussed strengthening the nations’ relationship. Both countries aim to sign a “very significant” defense cooperation agreement within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles discussed strengthening the nations’ relationship.<\/strong><\/li>\n