Indonesia, Turkey intensify defence cooperation
Indonesia and Turkey have agreed to strengthen defence cooperation in accordance with the Defence Industry Cooperation Agreement in 2010.
The consensus was reached at a bilateral meeting between Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus on the sidelines of the Extraordinary Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jakarta on March 7.
They also agreed to enhance cooperation in intelligence following the terrorist bomb attacks in Jakarta in January, and Ankara in February.
Cooperation in the fields of security, particularly intelligence, police and special forces for combating terrorism, is considered important and needs to be improved as it is required to ward off international threats.
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Indonesia’s Antara news agency quoted Vice President Kalla as saying that his country supports Turkey as the latter prepares to host the 13th OIC Summit in April.
Indonesia and Turkey are strategic partners since April 5, 2011. They also have certain similarities such as a Muslim-majority population and being active members of the G21 (a bloc of developing nations), the OIC and D-8 (an organisation for development cooperation among eight countries).
Turkey is the 7th largest trading partner of Indonesia with bilateral trade of US$1.4 billion in 2015. It is also the 20th largest investor in the Southeast Asian nation with an investment value of US$64.1 million in 2014.
