JAKARTA (AFP) — Indonesia will not join an Asian arms race, the defence minister said Thursday, after Australia announced it planned to build up its military in response to a regional weapons buying spree.
Indonesia will avoid any major boost to military spending over the next five to 10 years as it focuses on the economy and social spending, Juwono Sudarsono said at a press conference with his Australian counterpart Joel Fitzgibbon.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week flagged a rise in defence spending to respond to military expansion by newly affluent Asian states but did not give a figure for the increase.
Indonesia plans to buy a small number of high-tech jets and submarines to reach "technological parity" with its neighbours but will continue to focus on relief operations for disasters that regularly hit the archipelago nation.
"The bulk of our defence (spending) is on transport because we need transport to provide relief efforts in terms of both man-made as well as natural disasters," Sudarsono said.
"We don't feel that we are engaged in an arms race, certainly not on strike force capabilities."
The defence minister said Indonesia had broken off negotiations with Russia to buy submarines because of excessive maintenance costs.
Indonesia is now looking at offers from Germany and South Korea for two new submarines to double its underwater fleet, but the number is far below the eight the country would want to fully guard its busy straits, Sudarsono said.
Indonesia is going ahead with the purchase of three Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia and has secured weapons for all four Sukhois already in operation, he said.
Speaking to reporters last week, Rudd said Australia was "in a region where there is an explosion in defence expenditure."
"There has been an arms race under way -- well, an arms build-up, let me put it in those terms -- in the Asia-Pacific region for the better part of the last decade," he said.
Indonesia and Australia enjoy a close military relationship but ties are periodically strained by mutual distrust and Indonesian suspicion of Australian support for separatist movements in far-flung provinces.
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