East Timor talks posponed due to the UN reshuffle

East Timor talks posponed due to the UN reshuffle

LISBON (Reuter): Talks between Portugal and Indonesia about East Timor, set for December 21 in New York, have been postponed, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The delay was proposed by the United Nations (UN), which is seeking to broker an accord over the territory, because of its leadership changes. Ghanaian Kofi Annan will be formally appointed Secretary-General on Tuesday replacing Egypt's Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Lisbon, the former colonial ruler in Timor, readily agreed to the delay because "there were few prospects for any visible results" from the talks, the spokeswoman told Reuters.

Portugal and Indonesia have been meeting periodically under the auspices of the U.N. about the future of the territory.

East Timor integrated into Indonesia in 1976 but the U.N. still considers Lisbon the administering power there.

Relations between Lisbon and Jakarta have sunk to new lows following the award two months ago of the 1996 Nobel Peace prize to East Timor Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and anti-integration leader Jose Ramos Horta.

The decision to award Jose Ramos Horta upset Jakarta which believed it could complicate the search for an accord with Lisbon.

The foreign ministry spokeswoman said Portugal would propose that the next round of talks, for which a date has not been set, be preceded by preliminary meetings between the two countries' ambassadors to the United Nations.

Portugal backs the call of anti-integration movements for the people of the territory to be allowed to decide their own future.

But Jakarta says that a vote was taken back in 1976 and the territory opted to become part of Indonesia.

Officials at the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry in Jakarta could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The most recent meeting, the eighth, between Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary-General took place in Geneva in June with little headway in resolving the dispute. The seventh round of talks were held in London in January.

Alatas admitted in June that progress had been slow, although details on substantial issues of the framework for a solution to the East Timor issue had been discussed.