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.