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)