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."