ASEAN troops in RI's tsunami-hit Aceh to remain: Malaysia
ASEAN troops in RI's tsunami-hit Aceh to remain: Malaysia
Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur
ASEAN troops carrying out relief work in Indonesia's tsunami- battered Aceh province will be allowed to remain indefinitely, Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said on Monday.
"The representative of (Indonesia's military chief) Gen. Sutarto told me that there is no deadline as such given to our soldiers with respect to our involvement in Aceh and that they can continue to be there until further notice," Najib told a news conference.
He was speaking after meeting defense chiefs from fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
"The 26 March deadline is only for their own planning purposes, but the important thing is that there is no such imposition as to a specific timetable for our withdrawal from Aceh," Najib said, adding this would also apply to troops from other ASEAN countries.
Malaysian troops would continue humanitarian aid in Aceh "for as long as necessary and for as long as our presence is welcomed by them," Najib said.
More than 100 Malaysian military personnel are expected to depart for Aceh soon to help set up a field hospital, bringing the total number of Malaysian military and police officers there to more than 400, Najib said.
Malaysia would also set up a relief center in Aceh that would be able to accommodate 10,000 tsunami victims, he said.
The armed forces of Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States all rushed units to Aceh in the wake of the December 26 tsunami disaster which killed more than 110,000 Indonesians.
Vice President Yusuf Kalla said last week that foreign troops should leave Aceh within three months -- "in fact the sooner the better."
But the Indonesian government announced on Sunday that foreign forces including the U.S. Navy can continue relief operations there beyond a March 26 deadline.
Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said the earlier demand by Kalla was "not a deadline for involvement of foreign military personnel".
"It is a benchmark for the Indonesian government to improve and accelerate its relief efforts so that by March 26th the large part of the burden of the relief efforts will be carried by the Indonesian government and authorities on the ground," Sudarsono said.
"Foreign military assistance, operations providing relief and rehabilitation will be allowed to continue, albeit on a reduced scale," he said after talks with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the commander for U.S. forces in the Pacific, Admiral Thomas Fargo.
The ASEAN defense chiefs are in Kuala Lumpur for a two-day annual informal meeting.
The defense chiefs have agreed to "collaborate more closely together using a hotline to communicate with one another in times of really major disasters," Najib said.
Najib is due to meet Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill later on Monday as Hill returns from a visit to Aceh.
An Australian embassy spokesman said Hill would be visiting a logistics hub at a military air base at Butterworth in Malaysia's northern Penang state. It was set up by the Australian military to better manage the flow of aid into Aceh.