Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Army Chief of Staff General Pramono Edhie Wibowo said Australia is Indonesia`s important partner to create peace in the Asia Pacific region and called for enhanced cooperation between the two nations, the Armies in particular.

"Of course, the cooperation must be based on mutual respect, mutual confidence and peace love spirit," he said when receiving his Australian counterpart, Lt. Gen. David L, Morrison here on Wednesday.

Pramono said the Indonesian Army (TNI AD) would always commit itself to build closer ties with the Australian Army.

"In addition to cooperation in education and training, there need to be cooperation in the exchange of intelligence information. For this part, the cooperation we will build (with the Australian Army) will always be based on the principles of mutual confidence, mutual respect and mutual benefit by upholding peace love spirit," he said.

Shortly after paying a courtesy call on his Indonesian counterpart, David L Morrison in the company of commander of the Australian special force Maj. Gen. P.W (Gus) Gilmore visited the Army`s special elite force command (Kopassus) post in Cijantung, East Jakarta.

The Indonesian Army`s special elite force and the Australian special force had conducted a joint exercise dubbed Special Operations Command (SOCOMD). The joint exercise code-named "Dawn Komodo XI/2011" took place in Kotok Island, Seribu Islands, for two weeks, participated in by 40 Kopassus personnel and 34 Australian special force personnel.

In the joint exercise, the special troops of the two countries had exercises on how to shoot reaction objects and deal with terrorists at sea.

The joint exercise was a means to exchange knowledge between the two delegations. "It was also aimed at improving the technical and tactical ability and skill of the troops both in individual and group fighting," Kopassus commander Maj. Gen. Lodewijk F. Paulus said. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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