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Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visited Türkiye last week, on April 9, not long after he welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Jakarta this February as part of Erdoğan’s tour of Asia. The exchange of visits is only one sign that relations between the two countries are strong—and growing.
But there’s a bigger picture to the exchange as well: Ankara’s approach to its relationship with Jakarta is demonstrative of its overall strategy toward the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Such a strategy is portrayed in Ankara’s Asia Anew Initiative, launched in 2019, which prioritizes economic engagement with Asian countries.
The last time Prabowo visited Türkiye—in July 2024, then the president-elect and minister of defense—he underscored Türkiye’s significance as a strategic partner for Indonesia. There, Prabowo and Erdoğan also reportedly discussed the possibility of expanding the Indonesia-Türkiye partnership, including in the defense sector.
The countries have a history of defense collaboration: For example, they signed an industry cooperation agreement in 2010. Indonesian state-owned firm PT Pindad and Turkish armored-vehicle manufacturer FNSS worked together in the 2010s to produce a medium-weight tank, the Kaplan MT. The two countries have also intensified their collaborative efforts in intelligence and combating terrorism. In 2023, Indonesia bought twelve reconnaissance drones, worth $300 million, from Türkiye.
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