Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian and South Korean navies have agreed to cooperate in handling piracy and a variety of other crimes at sea, mindful of the two countries` recent experience with Somalian pirates.

Indonesian Navy spokesman Commodore Tri Prasodjo said here on Wednesday that the two parties agreed to exchange information and conduct joint exercises involving the engineering and tactical operations to deal with piracy and other crimes at sea.

The Indonesian-flagged trading ship MV Sinar Kudus manned by 24 crew members was hijacked by Somali pirates for 46 days and was

successfully freed by paying a ransom and a military operation involving special military forces.

"We will make formulation in detail regarding the form of the cooperation. The point is we need to exchange information on anti-piracy operations, the threat of crime-prone sea pirates and evaluation," he said.

The cooperation on anti-piracy handling between the navies of both countries, became the topic in the eighth navy to navy talks.

In addition to explore the anti-piracy cooperation, the forum also discussed the possible cooperation in the field of submarine, and strengthen a variety of cooperations which have been carried out by both sides so far.

Several cooperations which have been conducted by the two navies among others the students exchange program between the two Naval school command staffs (Sesko) including that for 2012.

"Indonesian Navy has also invited the ROKN young officers to join the Cruise Training program on board the Dewaruci warship from July through August 2011," Tri Prasodjo added.

(B003/HAJM/F001)

Editor: Suryanto
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