EU, Japan hail Aceh peace signing

EU, Japan hail Aceh peace signing

Agencies, Jakarta

Foreign countries began to welcome Monday's signing of a historic
peace accord in Finland between the Indonesian government and the
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to stop three decades of separatist
fighting in Aceh.

In London, the British presidency of the European Union said
the EU looked forward to helping to put the peace agreement into
effect.

"This is a historic move, which marks the end of 30 years of
fighting," Britain's foreign office minister for Asian affairs,
Kim Howells, said in a statement as reported by AFP.

"Implementation of the agreement will pave the way for a
sustainable peace in Aceh and greatly assist the effective
rebuilding of communities devastated by the tsunami," he said.

Howell recalled that the 25-nation European Union supported
the peace process promoted under the Crisis Management Initiative
(CMI), chaired by Finland's former president Martti Ahtisaari.

"I am pleased that the EU is able to play a part in supporting
this peace agreement through its role in the Aceh Monitoring
Mission and the potential support to the measures that the
government of Indonesia and local authorities will adopt to
ensure a lasting peace in the province."

Javier Solana, the European Union's top foreign policy
official, also expressed satisfaction at the signing and at the
EU's future role in monitoring the agreement.

"I warmly welcome the signing today of this memorandum of
understanding. It marks an end to 30 years of fighting in Aceh
province," Solana said in a statement issued in Brussels,
Belgium.

"Our hope and expectation is that this crucial step will pave
the way for a return of peace in Aceh and facilitate the
effective rebuilding of Aceh after the tsunami disaster," the
statement said.

"I also welcome the readiness of the government of Indonesia
and the Free Aceh Movement to immediately show restraint, to halt
hostilities in Aceh and to fully implement the agreements
contained in the memorandum of understanding."

On the planned deployment of between 200 and 250 unarmed
observers in the province, an operation to be headed by the EU in
cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), he said: "This mission is of great importance and
significance to those in the region and to the European Union."

"It also marks an important new phase in the cooperation
between the EU and ASEAN," Solana said.

Japan, which hosted previous Aceh peace talks that produced a
truce in 2002 that later broke down a year later, similarly
hailed Monday's signing of the third peace agreement.

"The government of Japan has consistently held a basic view
that the issue of Aceh should be resolve peacefully under the
principle of the territorial integrity of Indonesia ...," said a
statement from the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta.

The statement, a copy of which was released to The Jakarta
Post, said Japan would continue to "stand ready to extend
necessary assistance to the efforts directed toward peaceful
solutions of the Aceh issue".

Meanwhile, the head of the EU-ASEAN peace monitoring mission
for Aceh sounded optimistic that Indonesia and GAM would stick to
their commitment to make peace, calling the deal the "best you
can get".

Dutch diplomat Pieter Feith, who heads the mission of 200 to
250 monitors, said last year's tsunami had triggered a
conciliatory mood in both the rebels and the Indonesian
government.

He called the peace deal "the best you can get. There is a
reasonably good basis that this time it will work".

He said the key challenge for both sides would be to deal with
dissent in their ranks.

"There will be spoilers ... people that are going to resist
and complicate matters," Feith, who participated in Balkan peace
operations for NATO and the EU, was quoted by AP as saying.