EU unlikely to renew RI arms embargo: British minister

EU unlikely to renew RI arms embargo: British minister

LONDON (Agencies): The European Union is unlikely to renew an arms embargo imposed against Indonesia on Sept. 16 and due to expire Monday, a British foreign office minister said Thursday.

John Battle, a British junior minister, who is due to visit Indonesia and East Timor next week, said: "It would require absolute unanimity of every single country in the EU to actually extend it further.

"East Timor has been positively sorted out and there is not, I don't think, the will to extend the embargo."

"What we believe is that we need now to be underpinning rather than undermining Indonesia at this important time: helping build Indonesia's young democracy...We want to develop relations with President Wahid's government that addresses human rights, and promotes trade and commerce," he said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, which promised to add an ethical dimension to foreign policy when it came to power in 1997, has struggled to balance demands of a lucrative arms export industry with calls for curbs from human rights groups.

It faced fierce criticism last year over its sales of Hawk jets to Indonesia.

The sales, agreed under a contract signed by the previous Conservative government, were only suspended when the EU arms embargo came into force.

However a voice of dissension was sounded by Sweden who has called for the embargo to be extended.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh argued that Indonesia was not stable enough to warrant delivery of arms and other materiel, despite assurances from Jakarta that it preferred to solve internal problems "with dialog".

A spokesman at the European Commission said the circumstances in which the embargo had been declared no longer held.

East Timor was now under UN administration pending independence.

A source at the European Union's Portuguese presidency said: "It will probably expire normally."

EU foreign ministers hold their next meeting Jan. 24-25 in Brussels.

Britain's Foreign Office said that any British arms sales would still be subject to checks and controls and the ministry would continue to monitor the human rights situation in Indonesia.

Battle maintained that Indonesia remained "on notice, without a doubt" on the question of arms exports.

But he said despite religious clashes in several provinces Indonesia had made great strides in recent months.

"If we'd looked back at Indonesia a year ago, the situation has been transformed," Battle said.

"It has moved on better than the expectations of the international community," he added.

Battle said he had been encouraged by President Abdurrahman Wahid's "non-sectarian" response to violence in Maluku, but said Britain was keeping a cautious outlook.

"We need to be realistic and not look through rose tinted glasses," he said. "There are pitfalls ahead in a new emerging democracy."