Alatas does not expect much in East Timor talks

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas said yesterday that a meeting with his Portuguese counterpart Jaime Gama at the United Nations to discuss the East Timor conflict this weekend would be simply to review the situation.

"Frankly speaking, I don't have high expectations of making any significant progress," Alatas said after meeting with President Soeharto at the Merdeka Palace.

"The purpose of the meeting is to overview ... how far we have come in our dialogs under the auspices of Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and what we need to convey to the new secretary general," said Alatas, who flew out of Jakarta last night for Paris, before heading for New York.

The meeting, scheduled for this Saturday, will be the ninth between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sovereignty of East Timor.

The meetings were initiated by secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar and were continued during Boutros-Ghali's five-year term, which ends this month. The UN General Assembly is expected to endorse today Kofi Annan of Ghana as the new secretary general, to start on Jan. 1, 1997.

Asked whether he expected the dialogs to continue under Annan, Alatas said: "This is something that we have to see. It is expected that the new secretary general will continue what has been done by Boutros-Ghali, just like Boutros-Ghali continued the work of his predecessor."

Responding to a question about his CNN debate last week on the East Timor conflict with Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio and other speakers, Alatas said the program's set up disadvantaged Indonesia.

As well as the two men, the program featured the two East Timorese Nobel laureates Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos Horta, Indonesia's ambassador to the UN Nugroho Wisnumurti and senior East Timor politician Lopez da Cruz.

Alatas said his appearance was pre-recorded, making it difficult for him to argue against points raised by the Portuguese president.

"Every time the Portuguese President spoke, he was clapped by his supporters. In that kind of set up, it was difficult for us to have the opportunity to debate. The questions asked also carried certain connotations.

"Jonathan Mann (the CNN anchor) tried to present a balanced picture, but he failed," the minister said.

Alatas commended the election of Annan by the UN Security Council as the new secretary general.

He said Annan had vast experience and knowledge about the in- and-outs of UN operations, and was obviously aware of the problems facing the world body today.

"He is very qualified. I know him personally," he said.

Indonesia hoped that just like Boutros-Ghali, Annan would be sensitive and possess in-depth knowledge about the problems facing developing countries and the Non-Aligned Movement, Alatas said.

He said that given the United States fully supported Annan's election, one of the first things it should do is pay its debts to the UN.

"This is a pressing problem which hopefully will be resolved with the election of the new secretary general," he said.

Alatas said his trip to Paris was to attend a meeting of foreign ministers representing the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 developing countries with the French minister representing the Group of Seven industrialized countries.

Topics to be discussed include the debt problems of poor countries, the latest developments in the Middle East and Bosnia Herzegovina, terrorism, the illicit drug trade and efforts to stop the production and use of land mines. (emb)