Timor-Leste, represented by the Minister of Defence and Security, Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, by the Secretary of State for Defence, Júlio Tomás Pinto and by the F-FDTL Commander, Major-General Taur Matan Ruak, participated in the 1st International Defence Dialogue, that took place from March 23 to 25, in Jakarta.
The objective of the 1st International Defence Dialogue is to join efforts to reinforce security and stability at the national, regional and international level.
In his intervention, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence and Security, reminded that “this is a true challenge: to establish a common agenda at the international level, in areas as sensitive and complex as security and stability. For this, I consider that we have to approach this theme at the following levels: internally for each country (…) at the regional level and (…) at a higher level (…) the world globally”.
Xanana Gusmão identified terrorism, security at sea, drugs, weapons trafficking, money laundry and human trafficking as the common elements at all these levels.
In this way, he referred that it is necessary “to begin an approach in terms of cooperation between countries, for an effective coordination of data and information exchange. Only in this way can there be a real collective action for the countries’ security and stability, as a condition for the security and stability of a specific region and neighbouring regions”.
After the end of the 1st International Defence Dialogue, the Chief of Defence Force Taur Matan Ruak, in a interview, highlighted the importance of the Dialogue in the discussion of issues such as peace maintenance, anti-terrorism and natural disasters.
The Major-General added that Timor-Leste, as a young nation, still doesn’t have many experiences in these areas, but referred the importance of the lesson that can be learned from sharing experiences regarding the approached issues. For Taur Matan Ruak, this sharing allows the country to organize itself, taking into account the will of the Timorese People to contribute for stability, putting together their efforts to the regional and international efforts. Timor-Leste should learn with the various experiences lived by developed countries.
“In the first place, for Timor-Leste, the priority is to strengthen the institutions with vocation for natural disasters, for support of the Peace operations and anti-terrorism. In second place, training and capacity of people and after that, then mange to have capacity to respond to situations through action and cooperation. Since Timor-Leste intends to participate in Peace keeping operations, it is opportune that the F-FDTL start to prepare their elements this year”, ensured Taur Matan Ruak.
The 1st International Defence Dialogue was organized by Indonesia through the Ministry of Defence and the University of Defence and joined thirty four countries.