Indonesia and Australia have finalized a new defense treaty that will improve the neighboring countries' ability to use their military forces on each other's territory, the Associated Press reported, citing BTA.
Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto, who also serves as Defense Minister, met with Australian dignitaries in the country's parliament earlier today.
Bilateral relations are becoming increasingly important to Australians amid rising tensions with China. New Australian prime ministers usually make the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, one of their first overseas destinations.
The contract will be signed within days of Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles visiting Jakarta.
Marles said that the successful conclusion of the negotiations after two years is important for the national security of both countries.
„What this agreement will do is provide much greater interoperability between our defense forces, increase the number of exercises between our defense forces, get us working together in the global community to support rules-based order and, importantly, will allow us to operate from our countries' territories,” Marles told reporters.
„In that sense, this agreement will be the deepest, most significant that our two countries have ever entered into,”, Marles added.
Subianto described the contract as a means of “ironing out some legal details” and stated that it is making “great progress” in the defense cooperation of the two countries.
Ewan Graham, an analyst at the Strategic Policy Institute, an Australian think tank, questioned the strategic value of the pact for Australia.
Subianto said Indonesia would remain non-aligned under his leadership, Graham recalled. This means that Indonesia will remain among the group of countries that do not wish to be formally allied with or against a major power bloc such as the United States.
„The issue is that Indonesia does not share the same threat perception as Australia regarding China,” he added.
With a population of about 275 million, Indonesia is 10 times the size of Australia, which has a population of less than 27 million.