VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesian Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu and his Singaporean counterpart, Ng Eng Hen, held another bilateral talks to discuss enhanced counter-terrorism cooperation at the Singaporean Defense Ministry on Monday. In his a press statement released on Monday, Ryacudu underscored the importance of more integrated and transparent counter-terrorism cooperation between the two nations,

The two defense ministers also discussed a planned meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Indonesian President Joko Widodo in the Indonesian resort island of Bali to discuss progress achieved in defense cooperation including the concept of planned intelligence cooperation.

Both Ryacudu and Ng Eng Hen also agreed that the joint statement "Our Eyes" will lay a regional platform for the exchange of intelligence information started from ASEAN.  Six ASEAN member states, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand have agreed to "Our Eyes" joint statement which serves as a commitment to promote peace, security stability and welfare in the Southeast Asian region.

It will later be developed to cover ASEAN partners including non-ASEAN partners and that it will focus on effective intelligence information exchange mechanism to paralyze the strongholds of terrorism.

Without ruling out the development of strategic environment, Ng Eng Hen stated Singapore is prepared to join trilateral forum involving Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia to conduct a joint exercise in the Philippine waters. After they hold exercise in their own country, they will later conduct joint exercises in Tarakan and later in Tawi-Tawi.

Ryacudu believed Singapore`s participation will have a positive impact on the mechanism of the longstanding cooperation between the three countries.

"With this, we hope we could conduct integrated transnational operations in various forms of operations in the context of maritime, air and land networks," he said.

By sticking to the principles of counter-terrorism, the two defense ministers also agreed that the threat of ISIS group must be responded by keeping abreast of the growing phenomenon of the threat. (ant)