MELBOURNE, Australia, 20 Aug (AP) \u2014 Indonesia and Australia on Tuesday finalized a new bilateral defense treaty that will enhance the neighboring nations\u2019 ability to operate their militaries in each other\u2019s territory.<\/p>\n
The agreement was reached as Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto, who also serves as defense minister, met with Australian officials at the country\u2019s Parliament earlier Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The bilateral relationship is becoming increasingly important to Australians in face of growing tensions with China. New Australian prime ministers typically make Jakarta one of their first overseas destinations.<\/p>\n
The pact will be signed within days, when Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles visits Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Marles said the successful conclusion of negotiations after two years was significant for both countries\u2019 national security.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this agreement will do is provide for much greater interoperability between our defense forces, it will provide for much more exercises between our defense forces, it will see us working together the global commons to support the rules-based order and, importantly, it will allow us to operate from each other\u2019s countries,\u201d Marles told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in that sense, this agreement will be the deepest, the most significant agreement that our two countries have ever made,\u201d Marles added.<\/p>\n
Subianto described the agreement as \u201cironing out some legalistic details\u201d and said that it achieved \u201cgreat progress\u201d in the two countries\u2019 defense cooperation.<\/p>\n
Euan Graham, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, questioned the pact\u2019s strategic value to Australia.<\/p>\n
Subianto made clear that Indonesia would remain non-aligned under his leadership, Graham said. This means Indonesia will remain among a group of countries that don\u2019t want to be officially aligned with or against any major power bloc such as the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue is that Indonesia doesn\u2019t share the same threat perception as Australia towards China,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
With around 275 million people, Indonesia has 10 times the population of Australia, which has fewer than 27 million people.<\/p>\n
Subianto\u2019s overnight Canberra visit was his first to Australia since he was elected president in February.<\/p>\n
He noted that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the first foreign leader to congratulate him on his election victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had our ups and downs as the political situation and the geopolitical situation of course evolved, but I think we are very happy today to have several decades of very close cooperation,\u201d Subianto told reporters and added he was determined to continue \u201cthis good neighbor relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albanese said he looked forward to attending the president\u2019s inauguration in October. Albanese was elected prime minister in 2022 while Indonesian President Joko Widodo was in power.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no more important relationship than the relationship between our two great nations,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe strides that President Widodo and I have made together toward a deeper economic relationship will be the foundation of the work that I know will continue under your administration,\u201d Albanese added.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, Australia, 20 Aug (AP) \u2014 Indonesia and Australia on Tuesday finalized a new bilateral defense treaty that will enhance the neighboring nations\u2019 ability to operate their militaries in each other\u2019s territory. The agreement was reached as Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto, who also serves as defense minister, met with Australian officials at the country\u2019s Parliament […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}