REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Spokesman of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Arrmanatha Nasir, said Indonesia would soon establish cooperation with five countries to cope with smokes from land and forest fires.
"It is important to cooperate with countries that have power to cope with fires and smokes. There are five countries that will cooperate with us, namely Australia, China, Malaysia, Russia, and Singapore," said Arrmanatha, Thursday (8/10).
He explained that Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno LP Marsudi, already talked with Foreign Minister of Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia to discuss the cooperation and assistance in dealing with fire points in several regions in Indonesia.
"Up to this day, there are still about 110 hotspots and 11 them are in Riau," he said.
He said Indonesian government still has to discuss forms of assistance and cooperation to be undertaken with the five countries.
"This cooperation has still to be discussed, because there are cooperation in form of assistance and commercial base," he added.
Arrmanatha stated, Indonesia has pretty much efforts to overcome land and forest fires and to reduce the spread of smokes.
For extinguishing the fire, Indonesian government has deployed 26 helicopters to carry out the bombing of water and deployed four special aircraft to perform weather modification to produce artificial rain.
"Data from Ministry of Environment and Forestry stated that 65 million liters of water had been poured into various hotspots in five provinces and 250 tons of salt has been used for weather modification," he explained.
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