Defense Minister Prabowo Discusses Defense Cooperation With Turkish Foreign Minister

JAKARTA - Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto received a visit from Turkish Foreign Minister HE Mr. Hakan Fidan at the Ministry of Defense office, Jakarta.

During his visit, Defense Minister Prabowo and Turkish Foreign Minister discussed a number of topics related to bilateral relations between the two countries, including cooperation in the defense sector.

Defense Minister Prabowo assessed that Turkey is an important friendly country and has long built cooperation in the defense sector with Indonesia in a bilateral framework.

"I see that there is still a lot of space and field of defense cooperation that can be utilized by the two countries in the future," Prabowo said as quoted by ANTARA, Saturday, July 15.

According to him, this cooperation must be improved in building mutual trust and increasing the capacity of the armed forces and the defense industry sector of the two countries. This is because Indonesia and Turkey have close cooperation in the defense sector.

The two countries have documents on cooperation agreements in the defense industry which were signed in 2010. This close relationship is also reflected in the existence of a defense dialogue forum between Indonesia and Turkey (Defence Dialogue Meeting Indonesia-Turkeye which began in 2020.

"The two countries also have research and development cooperation in the defense sector," he said.

The cooperation that has been carried out at this time includes research cooperation and the development of radio defense software between Aselsan (Turkey) and PT Wellracom Megahjaya and PT TEN (Indonesia).

Then the research and development cooperation of IFV-Infantry Fighting Vehicle between FNSS (Turkey) and PT Pindad (Indonesia). The two countries also have cooperation to increase the capacity of the defense industry.