5 days Ago By The Independent
Australia is “seeking clarification” from Indonesia about a report claiming Russia is seeking access to a military base in the Southeast Asian country. The report by defence news website Janes says Russia is seeking to base military aircraft in the country’s Papua province. “We obviously do not want to see Russian influence in our region, very clearly,” Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said.
“We have a position, which is: we stand with Ukraine , we regard Vladimir Putin as an authoritarian leader who has broken international law, that is attacking the sovereignty of the nation of Ukraine.” Janes claims Moscow is looking to base long-range aircraft at the Manuhua air force base, which shares a runway with the Frans Kaisiepo airport. The news outlet, citing Indonesian government sources, says that Russia made a request for access to the base to defence minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin’s office following his meeting with secretary of the Russian security council Sergei Shoigu , in February.
Indonesia has denied the report, however. Australian defence minister Richard Marles said that he spoke with Mr Sjamsoeddin who told him “in the clearest possible terms” that “reports of the prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are simply not true”. Peter Dutton , leader of the opposition Liberal party, described the report as concerning and declared that Russia was “not welcome in our neighbourhood”.
“We don’t want a presence, a military presence, from Russia in our region which would be destabilising for Southeast Asia,” he said, “and it would certainly be a very different calculation for the risks that are posed to our country in a period that is very uncertain.” The Manuhua military base lies about 1,200km north of the Australian city of Darwin , where a US Marines Corp rotational force is based for six months of the year. Australia is also upgrading its air bases to host visiting US bombers.
Dr Rahman Yaacob of the Lowy Institute told ABC News that Indonesia had always maintained a position of non-alignment with major global powers. He told the outlet Russia had made a similar request before but was turned down. Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said Indonesia was “critical for Australian security”.
The two nations signed a defence cooperation agreement last year. “We, as a government, have reached out to confirm those reports and to understand whether or not those reports are accurate and what the status of those requests from Russia are,” she said. Yohanes Sulaiman, a defence analyst at the Jenderal Achmad Yani University, said Jakarta was unlikely to allow Russia use of the military base.
“Even if Russia is proposing to use an Indonesian airbase, I doubt that the government will allow it,” he told the Guardian . “There will be a very significant blowback. The Indonesian military is very averse to having other countries build military bases in Indonesia.
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