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.