Shinn, who is the head of the US delegation, told reporters after the opening of the two-day fifth Indonesia-US defense dialogue here in Jakarta that the US considered Indonesia as a strong partner.

"We try to see how we can expand our security cooperation across of whole range of issues, diplomatic as well as military. We consider Indonesia as a strong partner," he said.

On the same occasion Director General for Defense Strategy of the Indonesian Defense Ministry and head of the Indonesian delegation Maj. General Dadi Susanto convinced that the bilateral cooperation "will be stronger as it has the right ground."

The United States imposed an embargo to the Indonesian military for poor human rights record in Timor Leste before and after the United Nations-backed referendum in 1998.

The ban was lifted in 2004 followed by the resumption of full military ties of both countries.

To anticipate the resuming such sanction, Indonesia has decided to diversify the source of its weaponry from other countries.

The archipelago country has decided to spend 1-billion US dollars to purchase weaponry from Russia and reached agreements with Czech and India to boost defense cooperation.

Both heads of delegations from the US and Indonesia said that the possible cooperation would be in the fields of combating terrorism, law enforcement, joint activities, information sharing, exchanging of students and visits of officers.

Regarding to the demand of an international rights group to exclude the participation of the special unit of the Indonesian Armed Forces known as Kopassus from the international activities because of its poor human rights records in Indonesia, the head of US delegation said that the US would include the Kopassus in the future cooperation.

"Kopassus is an important part of Indonesian military of the TNI and we would like to find ways to cooperate," he said.

In the draft of US state budget for this year, the congress lifts the restriction of the Indonesian military participation on the International Military Training (IMET) in US, according to a release from the Indonesian Defense Ministry.