Alatas in Geneva for Timor talks

Alatas in Geneva for Timor talks

GENEVA (Agencies): Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali
Alatas met with United Nations' Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali yesterday at the start of the latest round of talks
to discuss the future of East Timor.

Boutros-Ghali also separately met with Jose Manuel Durao
Barroso, the foreign minister of Portugal, East Timor's former
colonial master.

The three were later to gather in a joint meeting and a
working lunch, according to Reuters.

Alatas was quoted by the Antara news agency as saying on the
eve of the meeting on Friday that the talks this time were
expected to start discussing substantive issues to put the
meeting on a path towards a just, comprehensive and
international acceptable solution of the East Timor problem.

The previous five rounds of meeting were largely used to
discuss "confidence building measures".

Alatas said he had no idea what the substantive issues were
because the UN Secretary General was expected to raise them. But
whatever they were, Indonesia was prepared, he added.

"Since the talks have now reached the substantive issues, all
parties would obviously move more cautiously," he said.

The meeting is also expected to review the results of the
historic meeting among the various East Timorese factions on both
sides of the integration debate in Austria last month, an event
organized by the United Nations as part of the confidence
building measures.

This is the sixth time that the Indonesian and Portuguese
foreign ministers have met under the auspices of the UN chief
since 1992.

East Timor integrated with Indonesia in 1976, a year after the
hasty withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration. The
United Nations, however, continues to regard Lisbon as the
administering power of the territory.