Alatas says little has been achieved in East Timor talks
Alatas says little has been achieved in East Timor talks
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas said
Friday that "not much progress" had been achieved in two rounds
of tripartite talks on East Timor, Antara reported Saturday.
The news agency said the minister made the remarks as
Indonesia wound up three days of United Nation-sponsored talks
with Portugal in New York.
"There is not much progress yet," he said. "In a sense, we are
just at the very beginning and, to be very frank with you, we
should not be too optimistic yet.
"We don't see any basic change yet in the Portuguese
position," he said.
Indonesia and Portugal have been deliberating a political
solution on the former Portuguese territory under UN auspices
since 1983.
Under the latest negotiating formula -- since UN chief Kofi
Annan took office in January -- senior diplomats from both
countries have met twice under an agreement reached between
Alatas and Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama in June.
Alatas said that the new-style talks, involving the Indonesian
foreign ministry's director general for political affairs,
Nugroho Wisnumurti, and his Portuguese counterpart, Fernando
Neves, were a "hopeful development".
The talks are mediated by UN special representative Jamsheed
Marker.
Both sides believe that "negotiators would be more at ease,
and freer to brainstorm and to look at various possibilities for
a solution, without being immediately committed," Alatas said.
Asked for his reaction to a call from exiled East Timor
resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta for his supporters to observe
a "complete cessation of all armed activity", Alatas said he was
not aware of the statement issued in Lisbon.
"If that is so it would be a wise thing to do," he said.
Separately, in Dili, East Timor, a member of the National
Human Rights Commission, Clementino dos Reis Amaral, condemned on
Sunday the recent slaying of two elementary school teachers,
allegedly by Fretilin separatists.
He also criticized the international community's silence over
the killing.
"When the Fretilin killed and robbed people, the international
community gave no reaction. Yet, if the (Indonesian) security
personnel caught the (separatists) and brought them to the court,
the international community would 'wriggle like a worm in the
heat of the sun`, criticizing and accusing us of being human
rights violators," he said. (swe)