Prabowo Subianto, Minister of Defense, met with President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo to discuss a number of defense issues, including the Ukrainian war, military cooperation with African countries, and technology development cooperation with South Korea.
Prabowo advises mutual respect to the Ukrainian war
Subianto assessed that the development of the war between Russia and Ukraine was changing rapidly and needed further discussion.
The Indonesian government is considered to have to be clear about the state of war, such as a position of mutual respect for provisions and international law.
Currently, the government maintains good relations with all parties and tries to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.
“We continue to try to provide good input,” said Subianto.
Cooperation with Africa and South Korea
Prabowo also mentioned that he had responded to requests for defense cooperation with a number of African countries and is committed to following up on these requests.
“So many African countries have asked Indonesia to help train their country’s defense forces,” Prabowo said.
In addition, Indonesia also needs to explore the continuation of cost and share negotiations with the South Korean government regarding the development of the KF-21 fighter jet project.
The project is a joint fighter jet development project between Indonesia and South Korea.
So far, the initial financing for the Korea Aerospace Industry (KAI) is US$ 3.3 billion, with a potential economic value of up to US$ 10 billion and potential employment for 27,000 people.
Currently, Indonesia has only met 17% of the development costs, and needs to pay the remaining 83% of the costs.
