Ankara. President Prabowo Subianto wrapped up his bilateral talks with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday with a cooperation agreement on disaster management.

Under the freshly signed memorandum of understanding (MoU), Indonesia’s Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) will partner with its Turkish counterpart on joint training and studies to better mitigate natural disasters. Turkiye, which finds itself at the crossroads of different tectonic plates, is quite prone to earthquakes. Indonesia, too, experiences quite frequent earthquakes and flooding.

According to BNPB, the training sessions, which will be equipped with emergency response simulations, aim to improve the quality of human capital in both agencies. Prabowo admitted that he had a "productive" and "warm" meeting with Erdogan. 

"There was also a desire to continue to improve our cooperation. ... We have also reached various agreements, including on natural disaster mitigation," Prabowo said in Ankara.

Prabowo wrapped up his Ankara trip with two more deals, the first being an MoU in the fields of media and public relations between the two country's presidential communication offices. The two governments also signed a MoU on cultural cooperation.

The disaster management cooperation was quite timely as it took place not long after a 4.1-magnitude quake struck West Java’s Bogor on Thursday night. Local authorities reported that the earthquake had damaged at least 14 houses.

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