Indonesia, Australia eye signing security pact soon
JAKARTA: Indonesia and Australia held high-level talks in the former’s capital Jakarta on Friday as the two neighbors seek to strengthen security ties by signing a defense cooperation agreement in the coming months.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, set to become Indonesia’s next president, said he and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles discussed ways to maintain and enhance their countries’ good relationship.
Prabowo also said Indonesia and Australia hoped to sign a “very significant” defense cooperation agreement within two or three months. Details about the deal were not provided.
Marles described the planned pact as “the single deepest and most significant defense cooperation agreement” in the history of the two countries.
“It will be a very significant moment in our bilateral relationship,” Marles said during a joint news conference with Prabowo. “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.”
Prabowo, 72, a former general who has never held elective office, emerged as the apparent winner of Indonesia’s February 14 presidential election. If an official count conducted over the next few weeks confirms his victory, he will take office in October.
Marles, who is on a two-day visit to Indonesia, said in a statement before his trip that Canberra and Jakarta had a long history of close cooperation on maritime security and would “share an ambition to further broaden and deepen our defense relationship.”
Friday’s meeting came after Australian Defense Force Chief Gen. Angus Campbell met with Prabowo on Tuesday. The back-to-back visits by two top Australian security officials this week reflected the importance of Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, to Australia.
Marles congratulated Prabowo on winning the election, saying it had been watched very closely in Australia. When asked about some Australians who are thought of supporting separatist rebels in Indonesia’s restive Papua region, the defense chief said Canberra supported “the territorial sovereignty of Indonesia, and that includes those provinces being part of Indonesia.”
“[N]o ifs, no buts, and I want to be clear about that,” he added.
Although Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people, is often presented as one of Australia’s most important neighbors and strategic allies, the relationship hasn’t always been smooth.
“We are destined to be close neighbors, and we are determined to be a good neighbor,” Prabowo said. “Historically, there are ups and downs, but we consider Australia as our close friend, which always in many critical instances sided with Indonesia.”
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; Jakarta’s imposition of capital punishment to Australian drug smugglers; and cases of people smuggling.
In 2017, Indonesia temporarily suspended military cooperation with Australia, including joint training and education, 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’s population, and the Indonesian military at an Australian military base.
In September 2021, Indonesia filed a diplomatic protest against Australia for being slow to provide information about its activities in the so-called Aukus trilateral pact involving the United States and the United Kingdom, including plans for Canberra to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Since 2022, Australia, along with Japan and Singapore, has been a part of the annual Indonesia-US joint combat exercise called Super Garuda Shield, making it the largest since the drills began in 2009.
China sees the expanded drills as a threat. Chinese state media have accused the US of building an IndoPacific alliance similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to limit Beijing’s growing military and diplomatic influence in the region.