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Australia and Indonesia have been elevated to a new level of strategic trust, according to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.
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Both countries recently agreed upon a new agreement to facilitate more ambitious joint military exercises, to be signed in Jakarta later this month. The Minister for Defence confirmed the new agreement will streamline how both countries’ defence personnel interact with each other, while speaking to ABC Afternoon Briefing earlier this week.
“It really is a statement of strategic trust between our two countries. So, this is going to improve interoperability between our defence forces. It will see us do more exercises together in both of our countries,” Deputy PM Marles said.
“It will see us work together more in terms of operating in the global commons in support of the rules-based order and I think that’s really important.
“It will allow us, and this is perhaps the most important point, to operate from each other’s countries. This, in a sense, creates a standard by which we can operate from each other’s countries and that means we’ll do it more.”
The defence minister also confirmed that the ADF is engaged in exercises with Indonesia and working through a program of exercises.
“This is not an alliance, as such. Indonesia has a proud history of being non-aligned. But what this does represent is a much greater ease by which we cooperate with each other in terms of defence,” the Deputy PM said.
“I think in that deeper sense, what we can take from this is really a new level of strategic trust which exists between Australia and Indonesia.
“This is very much both countries saying to each other that we see our respective security as being embedded in each other.
“When you think about the history of both our countries, the journey that we’ve been on over many decades, it’s actually a historically profound moment to be at a point where we do see our security lying in each other.”
Minister Marles also restated that in respect of Papua, Australia completely recognises the territorial integrity of Indonesia.
