Louise Williams – Indonesian and Australian military officials say joint special-forces exercises have been deferred for "technical reasons", but Australian defences sources say Canberra has concerns over the human-rights record of Indonesia's elite troops.

A spokesman for the Indonesian armed forces, Major-General Syamsul Ma'arif, said yesterday that Jakarta regretted the postponement of exercises scheduled for next month, but that the Indonesian military would used the time to upgrade its image following damaging revelations of human-rights abuses by its troops.

"In general we regret the decision," he said. "But we still have homework to do to upgrade our image and this is time consuming, so by not having these joint exercises we can focus on these efforts."

Earlier yesterday Australia's Defence Minister, Mr Moore, said the exercises had been deferred in light of budget cuts to the Indonesian armed forces. But Australian defence sources contradicted Mr Moore's statement, saying the exercises had been postponed because of concerns over revelations that Kopassus troops were involved in human-rights abuses, ongoing investigations into Kopassus, and the restructuring of the special forces.

"Budgetary considerations are important from an Indonesian perspective, but the decision wasn't based solely on budgetary issues," one source said.