Newly resigned Australian Defence Minister (along with his Defence Industry Minister)
""Christopher Pyne backs Australia joining Asia's 'Our Eyes' intelligence group""
October 11, 2018
Jakarta: Australia stands ready to join the "Our Eyes" ASEAN intelligence group and provide counter-terrorism information and training to the group, Defence Minister Christopher Pyne says.
The Our Eyes initiative was founded in January and is made up of six ASEAN nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei.
t focuses on combating the rise of militant groups and violent extremism in the region, with a particular concentration on regional hot spots in places such as the Philippines' city of Marawi, which was last year attacked by a group aligned with Islamic State. The Our Eyes nations have vowed to cooperate and share information between both national militaries and police forces.
""Its name evokes the long-established "Five Eyes" intelligence group, which is made up of Australia, the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Canada.""
Mr Pyne told Fairfax Media on Thursday, ahead of his first meeting with Indonesian Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu in Bali, that Australia and Indonesia already enjoyed a deep level of defence and intelligence cooperation but joining Our Eyes could take this to the next level.
"We will talk about the Our Eyes proposal Mr Ryamizard is sponsoring. We are yet to be formally invited to Our Eyes but we are open to joining and providing information and also training," he said.
"Our role would be to engage in the training of their people, their personnel, in the gathering of information and in the analysis of that information, which we have significant capabilities in, as do they."
"If we receive an invitation we will consider what it means in terms of our commitments and how it fits with our national security priorities. It might well be that it's not a significant commitment beyond what we already share with Indonesia."
My Pyne added that Australia and Indonesia already shared a significant amount of information about foreign fighters returning from the Middle East, for example, as well as radical Islamists based in Indonesia.
Although Australia and the Philippines already share intelligence information in the fight against Islamic State and extremism in the region, any move to deepen that intelligence relationship may potentially be controversial given President Rodrigo Duterte’s hardline approach to law and order, which has included extra-judicial killings.
Mr Pyne and Mr Ryamizard will discuss a range of other matters, including the response to earthquake in Palu – to which Australia sent humanitarian aid – maritime security and cooperation and the recently signed comprehensive strategic partnership agreement between Australia and Indonesia.
Australian National University south-east Asia security expert Greg Raymond said Australia could play the role of "honest broker" if it were to join the grouping, and encourage greater cooperation between nations that have traditionally been reluctant to share information with each other.
"There are issues of sovereignty and turf protection. But the problems in Marawi for example are far from solved, it's very much a live issue," he said.
"Australia needs to continue to keep pushing for higher degrees of cooperation between the ASEAN countries than they have been used to."
""Dr Raymond said that if Australia joined the grouping, it was possible that high level intelligence from the western Five Eyes grouping could be shared"" – but it would have to be carefully screened first.
"That wouldn’t be unprecedented. There are formal, deliberate processes on how you provide information that can be helpful, but which protects Australia’s sources."
But the bulk of the intelligence information Australia could share would likely not come from Five Eyes group.
"Australia has the Australian Federal Police working closely with its Indonesian counterparts already. There has long been sharing of sensitive information on criminal and potential terror suspects."