THE HON JOEL FITZGIBBON MP
Minister for Defence
Thursday, 27 March 2008
024/2008
MINISTER FOR DEFENCE MEETS WITH INDONESIAN
COUNTERPART FOR THE FIRST TIME
The Minister for Defence, the Hon. Joel Fitzgibbon, met his Indonesian
counterpart, the Hon. Dr Juwono Sudarsono, for the first time in Canberra
today.
"Australia and Indonesia have a confident and maturing defence relationship,
based on a foundation of mutual respect and trust, which we would like to
deepen and expand on matters affecting our common security interests such
as terrorism, regional security and piracy," Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“The meeting provided a timely opportunity to advance defence engagement
and cooperation following the recent ratification of the Australia-Indonesia
Lombok Treaty on security cooperation.
"We agreed that the Chief of the Defence Force and his Indonesian
counterpart will pursue the development of Joint Understandings on the
Australian-Indonesian Defence relationship to further defence cooperation.
The Joint Understandings will outline our mutual priorities for future defence
engagement, including military training and postgraduate education, study
visits and exchanges, combined exercises and maritime surveillance and
patrol," he said.
The Joint Understandings will be guided by the Lombok Treaty and reflects
the strengthening relationship between the two countries. Existing cooperation
and new initiatives will be implemented and coordinated through the annual
Australia-Indonesia Defence Strategic Dialogue.
Mr Fitzgibbon said, “We also explored mutually beneficial opportunities for
defence industry cooperation and ways to support capacity building and
management through, for example, joint science and technology projects.
“We agreed to continue to support peacekeeping initiatives through our
respective military peacekeeping centres, and humanitarian aid and disaster
management cooperation, in particular, the May 2008 ARF Indonesia-
Australia Disaster Relief desk-top exercise.”
Media contacts:
Christian Taubenschlag (Joel Fitzgibbon):
02 6277 7800 or 0438 595 567
Defence Media Liaison:
02 6265 3343 or 0408 498 664
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