S

erbian Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac is in Indonesia, and held a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Purnomo Yusgiantoro on Tuesday to strengthen the two countries’ defense relations and military cooperation during the first visit of the Serbian defense chief. The Jakarta Post’s Tyler Gniewotta talked to Sutanovic after the bilateral meeting. The following are excerpts from the interview;

What is your agenda for your time in Indonesia?

It is my first time in the country and I came at the invitation of Mr. Yusgiantoro, with the main objective of finding new modalities for future defense cooperation and creating the conditions for the development of economic and overall relations between our two friendly countries.

Has there been any concrete defense agreement signed during your trip?

Yes, this morning we signed the defense cooperation agreement which has created a legal framework for the further development of bilateral military cooperation. This is not just a buy/sell agreement, my strategic approach is to find things we can work on together such as education, training, exercises, military medicine, but we consider the defense industry cooperation to be the most important part of the cooperation.

The documents signed today are more political than practical but we hope this is the first step towards more bilateral cooperation.

What are the possibilities for cooperation in terms of defense and military equipment?

In the area of military-economic cooperation, we are able to offer arms and military equipment produced in the factories of the Serbian defense industry, modernization and overhaul facilities, joint research and development of new material items, technology transfer, joint production and marketing of special-purpose goods in third markets.

Serbia’s defense and arms industry has been growing rapidly as of late, to what do you attribute this growth?

This is the result of systematic planning by our government that started after the wars [following the break-up of Yugoslavia] when we needed to modernize the industry. We have now achieved around US$250 million per year in exports up from $75 million in 2007, we want to spread this so it is not only in products, but also in engineering and construction projects. We now have 10-state owned military defense companies.

Serbia also follows a foreign policy of ‘armed neutrality’, do you believe it is a contradiction to support armed neutrality while also increasing military exports every year?

This is something I am fully aware of, for example, in Serbia we have many signs that say “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, with or without weapons”.

We do not deal with organizations, only state and official authorities. Furthermore, according to recent research we were ranked 4th in the world for transparency when dealing in arms.

I am familiar with this liberal argument, but if you look around the world, at Switzerland for example, you will see that many peaceful countries can still maintain an economically beneficial arms export business.

What is the importance of Indonesia in the eyes of Serbia in terms of defense?

Indonesia is not only the strong point in the region; it is one of the focal points for the entire world. Although there are not many similarities between a country with 250 million people and one with 10 million, we both have faced the same threats in the past, and will continue to in the future.

Indonesia plays not only an important role in regional stability but is also an important player in world peace as displayed through its involvement in peacekeeping operations under UN auspices.