East Timorese PM attacks Australia

East Timorese PM attacks Australia

Jill Jolliffe, Agence France-Presse, Darwin

East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri launched a
freewheeling attack on the Australian government Monday saying it
had shown "a lack of seriousness and commitment" in maritime
talks with his new nation.

Speaking at an oil conference in the northern capital of
Darwin, Alkatiri said negotiations with Australia on better
sharing billions of dollars in oil and gas resources under the
Timor Sea had so far failed.

"The outlook after the first round of negotiations in April is
quite hopeless," he said.

"We do not claim these resources because we are poor; we claim
them because it is our international legal right" he told a
conference here.

"We fought for a generation for our independence and will do
the same for our economic independence," he said.

The conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard has
been accused of bullying one of the world's poorest countries by
claiming ownership of the oil-rich continental shelf two-thirds
of the way across the Timor Sea.

East Timor wants the border drawn midway between the two and
Alkatiri said Monday such a change would be worth an additional
US$12 billion in revenue for his country over the "next
generation", compared to $4.0 billion under the existing
arrangement.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the BBC the accusations
were "emotional claptrap which is being pumped up by left-wing
NGOs."

Alkatiri has retaliated to what he sees as Australian
intransigence by stalling on a March 2003 agreement for a $3.5
billion liquefied natural gas project in the Greater Sunrise
field.

It lies 80 percent outside the Timor Sea development area
agreed between the two countries in a deal which provides East
Timor with 90 percent of the revenues on the remaining 20 percent
of the field.

The Timorese leader has refused to send the agreement to
parliament for ratification until Australia agrees to accelerate
negotiations on the maritime boundary.

Clare Martin, chief minister of the Labor-run Northern
Territory government which hosted the conference, proposed an
unexpected solution to the deadlock on Monday.

"The downside of not negotiating is simply that Sunrise will
not be developed" she said."There go the jobs, there go the
revenues, there go the profits".

Martin said instead the two sides should "separate the issue
of maritime boundaries from the possible revenue and the revenue
split.

"Australia and East Timor can go back to the royalties
negotiating table and find a more generous revenue split that
would apply only to Sunrise," she said.

Her proposal angered federal government representative Warren
Entsch, who said the Northern Territory chief had acted out of
turn.

"Rather than raising it as a one-off suggestion at a public
forum, she should have prepared a written submission and sent it
to the government first," he asserted.