A

fter months of reluctance, the government has said that it was now willing to receive help from foreign countries to extinguish raging forest and peat land fires that have caused thick haze to envelope parts of Southeast Asia.

The government had previously declined repeated offers of assistance made by Singapore on the basis that it had sufficient resources to deal with the fires.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said she had spoken with her counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, China and Australia '€œto discuss cooperation initiatives to overcome fire hotspots'€, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir.

'€œThis has proven quite a challenge for us, so we see it as a necessity to work together with countries that have the available resources to extinguish the fires,'€ he said on Thursday.

Arrmanatha said foreign ministers from the five countries had indicated that they were ready to help and the next step would be to select the proper mechanisms, such as whether the cooperation would be technical or financial.

While waiting for assistance, the authorities have stepped up their efforts to put out the fires.

'€œAt least 65 million liters of water has been dropped on areas in five provinces and 250 tons of salt has been used to modify weather,'€ he said. '€œThese efforts have more or less succeeded, but there are still 110 hotspots as of today.'€

The government requires an aircraft that was able to store 10,000 liters of water to extinguish the 110 hotspots.

As many as 22,146 military and police personnel, and officers from relevant agencies, have been deployed to put out raging forest fires in six provinces, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB).

Recently, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called on Indonesia to take action against those setting forest fires, which have also affected areas of Malaysia.

President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo who flew to West Sumatra to observe fire fighting efforts on Thursday said that the foreign assistance would be of great value to accomplish the complex task of putting out the fires.

'€œWe hope [the assistance] can speed up efforts in tackling [the haze],'€ Jokowi said in a press release distributed by the presidential communication team.

BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the foreign countries, which were expected to focus on helping extinguish fires in South Sumatra, particularly in Ogan Komering Ilir and Musi Banyuasin regencies, would conduct a joint-operation.

According to Sutopo, Indonesia had experience working with foreign assistance teams. Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, the US, Japan and France joined efforts to extinguish forest fires in 1997.

'€œAs a follow-up, there will be meetings at the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister to discuss details of the assistance, mechanisms and other matters related to the foreign aid,'€ he added. '€œOf course what is needed is assistance that can fill gaps in the existing measures.'€

On Thursday at 5 p.m. Terra and Aqua satellites had detected 106 hotspots; 97 in South Sumatra, six in Bangka Belitung Islands, two in Lampung and one in Riau; and 21 in Kalimantan; 17 in Central Kalimantan and four in West Kalimantan.

According to the BNPB, Thursday'€˜s particulate matter (PM10) levels in Palembang, South Sumatra, Jambi and Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan all were recorded at '€œdangerous'€ levels. Pontianak, West Kalimantan, recorded a '€œmoderate'€ level.

'€” Tama Salim and Nani Afrida contributedto this report