Edi denies rifle deal with Australia

Edi denies rifle deal with Australia

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Security and Defense Gen. (ret.) Edi
Sudradjat dismissed as untrue an Australian press report
yesterday suggesting that Indonesia was considering the purchase
of Australian-made Steyr assault rifles.

"We've never had any plan to buy assault rifles from
Australia, neither in large nor small volume because we are
already producing our own rifles," Edi was quoted by the Antara
news agency as telling reporters.

"What deal? We haven't even thought about buying," Edi said in
the first official comment from Jakarta to the report published
earlier by The Australian.

He added that Indonesia might want one or two Steyr rifles,
"for our collection.. We need to study about rifles, but we won't
arm our soldiers with them."

Edi, the former Armed Forces (ABRI) chief and former Army
Chief of Staff, said the current SS1 rifle, produced by the
state-owned arms manufacturer Pindad, remains the main weapon of
the Armed Forces. "There hasn't been any complaint, so there is
no plan to replace it."

"The rifle that we're producing is excellent and is produced
to fit the physique of ABRI soldiers and is thus short and
light," he said of the SS1, which is produced by Pindad under
license from FNC, the Belgian arms manufacturer.

The Australian newspaper reported on Tuesday that Canberra has
approved, in principle, a bid by the government-owned Australian
Defense Industries (ADI) to sell Steyr assault rifles to the
Indonesian military. The deal is worth A$100 million (US$76
million), according to the report.

ADI manufactures the 5.56 mm Steyr rifle for the Australian
and New Zealand armies under license from Steyr-Daimler-Puch.

Edi yesterday did not rule out the possibility of buying the
kind of arms that Indonesia still cannot produce itself from
Australia. But he declined to elaborate if any such plans were in
the pipeline.

Indonesia has been looking to diversify its arms suppliers
away from the United States ever since 1993, when Washington
blocked its planned purchase of U.S.-built F-5 fighters from
Jordan on the grounds of a poor human rights record in Indonesia.
(emb)