Government backs envoy's meeting with GAM

JAKARTA (JP): Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab denied on Monday that a meeting last week between U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard and separatist leaders in Aceh amounted to intervention.

"Why should we call it intervention?" Alwi told reporters, after meeting Abdurrahman at Merdeka Palace.

"The United States supports Indonesia's territorial integrity. They are not supporting GAM," he said, referring to the Free Aceh Movement, which has been fighting for independence in the province since the mid-1970s.

Dismissing suggestions that the government was not informed about the meeting, Alwi said he had been told of the outcome of the meeting, which he then relayed to the President.

Gelbard met with GAM leaders on Friday to seek an end to disruption caused to ExxonMobil, which taps the Arun gas field in North Aceh, mainly for export to Japan and South Korea.

ExxonMobil temporarily shut down three of its five fields in North Aceh on March 9, citing GAM threats to its operation and personnel after company buses were hijacked, facilities torched and the company plane shot at.

In the latest incident, a fire was reported to have broken out at a pipeline in the Arun field on Saturday with the police blaming an attack by the rebels. GAM has denied responsibility.

GAM spokesmen have blamed recent outbreaks of violence around the closed ExxonMobil gas fields on the Indonesian military, including the shooting of a helicopter carrying Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro last month.(byg)