Indonesia says no deadline for foreign troops pullout

Foreign forces, including the US Navy, can continue tsunami relief operations in Indonesia beyond March 26 deadline, the Indonesian governme...

Foreign forces, including the US Navy, can continue tsunami relief operations in Indonesia beyond March 26 deadline, the Indonesian government said on Sunday.

In Thailand, the leaders of Canada, Sweden, Norway and Finland, which all lost citizens in the tragedy, were discussing reconstruction and efforts to identify the dead, while non-governmental organisations said 2,500 Myanmese migrant workers may have died in one province alone. The United States, whose military is playing a key role in aiding stranded victims in Indonesia’s devastated Aceh province, meanwhile, pledged to turn a new page in military ties with the world’s largest Muslim nation in the wake of the December 26 tragedy.

Indonesian Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono said an earlier demand by the country’s Vice-President, Yusuf Kalla, that overseas troops quit within three months or ‘‘the sooner the better’’ was ‘‘not a deadline for involvement of foreign military personnel’’.

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‘‘It is a benchmark for the Indonesian government to improve and accelerate its relief efforts so that by March 26, the large part of the burden of the relief efforts will be carried by the Indonesian government and authorities on the ground,’’ Sudarsono told reporters in Jakarta.

Sudarsono, speaking after talks with US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz

and the commander for US forces in the Pacific, Admiral Thomas Fargo, said the overseas military could remain, provided they scaled back their presence. — PTI

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