Australia offers more military training

Australia offers more military training

CANBERRA (Reuter): Australia has offered Indonesia extra help
in training its armed forces following a U.S. cutback on defense
ties with the Indonesian government, Australian Defense Minister
Robert Ray said on Tuesday.

"Indonesia is finding that its opportunities in the United
States to train militarily are much more limited than they have
been in the past... if not drying up," Ray told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio from Jakarta after meetings with
Indonesia's military leadership.

"So Australia is willing to fill part of that void," he said.

The United States last year curtailed some U.S. military
training for the Indonesian armed forces and tied a variety of
arms sales to improvements in Indonesia's human rights record.

Ray said that cutbacks in its own defense force numbers had
left Australia with plenty of spare defense training capacity.

"So it will be quite easy to accommodate those desires from
Indonesia and I think it will be beneficial for the
relationship," he said.

Ray said technical training was one area where Australia had
excess capacity and Indonesia had some deficiencies.

On Monday, Ray said Indonesia and Australia were considering
setting up a joint venture to produce weapons and other military
equipment.

Australia already carries out joint naval and air force
training exercises with Indonesia and senior army officers study
at Australia's military college.

Indonesian anti-terrorist forces have also trained briefly
with similar Australian forces.