Indonesia Must Strengthen Underwater Defense, Security: House

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia needs to strengthen its underwater defense and security in the wake of the discovery of an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) belonging to a foreign nation deep inside its territorial waters, a top legislator said.

"Any underwater drone and submarine of foreign countries cannot be at our sea without our government's permission,” Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives (DPR), Azis Syamsuddin, said on Friday.

The Indonesian Foreign Ministry must lodge a protest with the country which owns the drone that was recently found by a fisherman near Selayar Island, South Sulawesi province, he added.

The Foreign Ministry needs to also coordinate with the military (TNI) commander to take the necessary measures in response to the discovery of the foreign UUV, Syamsuddin said.

The TNI commander could dispatch TNI units to bolster their early-detection capability and to prevent the UUV from sending data obtained from the covert operation, he added.

The discovery of an underwater drone, which resembles China's Sea Wing UUV in physical appearance, indeed poses a serious threat to Indonesia's underwater defense and security, he asserted.

The Indonesian government must work to protect and secure the country's territorial waters by modernizing its underwater detection and tracking capability, he added.

According to reports, prior to the discovery of the underwater drone near Selayar Island on December 20, 2020, another underwater drone had been found in the waters off Riau Islands in March, 2019.

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