Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) on Sunday welcomed a US decision to resume training members of the Indonesian military after a 14-year hiatus, a military spokesman said.

"The TNI welcomes any form of cooperation which can concretely enhance professionalism in the military field," TNI deputy spokesman, Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki, told AFP.

He said he had not yet received details of the report, but said the resumption would be "a positive move" that would further reinforce cooperation in various fields between the armed forces of both countries.

Ahmad cited the exchange of information as one field where cooperation between US and Indonesian forces existed.

Indonesia's participation in the program has been essentially on hold since 1992, when its military launched a bloody crackdown against pro-independence protesters in East Timor.

The sanctions were further tightened in 1999, after the Indonesian army was accused of being behind the killing about 1,500 people in East Timor after voters decided to secede from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored ballot.

The ban was effectively written into law by the US Congress in 2002, when US lawmakers insisted generals in Jakarta were blocking an investigation into the killing of two US school teachers in Indonesia's Papua province.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa, who could not be immediately reached for comment on Sunday, has said a resumption of the training program would serve as a "correction for an anomaly.