Indonesia and Portugal touch the big issues

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers meeting in Geneva on Saturday touched on substantive issues on the question of East Timor, while agreeing to convene a second meeting of the All-Inclusive Intra-East Timor Dialog (AETD).

At the end of a one-day meeting sponsored by United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and his counterpart Jose Manuel Durao Barroso issued a joint communique welcoming the results of the AETD.

Held in Austria earlier this year, the AETD brought together 30 pro- and anti-integration Timorese with the aim of helping to create a conducive climate for the talks already underway.

As reported by Antara, Alatas told journalists after the meeting that despite his acceptance of the Secretary-General's proposal to convene a second AETD, he contended that the meeting should not discuss the political solution to the East Timor dispute.

The date and venue for the second AETD is to be decided at a later date.

The meeting between Alatas and Barroso on Saturday was the sixth convened under the trilateral framework set up by the UN Secretary-General in 1983 to find an internationally acceptable solution to the East Timor question.

The UN still recognizes Portugal as the administrative power in East Timor, despite its integration as Indonesia's 27th province in 1976.

Saturday's meeting also agreed that, prior to the seventh meeting, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Alaya Lasso would visit East Timor; sometime in late November or early December.

The seventh UN-sponsored Indonesia-Portugal meeting has been scheduled for Jan. 16, 1996, in London.

Although the two foreign ministers discussed substantive issues on the political status of East Timor for the first time, it seems little headway was made in moving either side from its original position.

"We are still very, very far from a final solution of the problem. That much is clear," Barroso said, as quoted by Reuters.

"We can be flexible on how to proceed with Indonesia...but we cannot renounce principles," he said.

Meanwhile, Alatas hinted that the discussion of substantive issues could be a long process.

"We are at the very beginning of the substantive talks and we don't know how long it will take," he said.

Speaking on the question of relations between the two countries, Alatas said the resumption of diplomatic ties would be up to Portugal, since Lisbon was the one who broke off relations after East Timor's integration.

As quoted by Antara, Alatas said he was not yet hoping for a re-establishment of diplomatic ties and that Indonesia would never ask for a resumption of ties.

The improvement of ties between Indonesia and Portugal is stipulated in point five of the joint communique.

Also mentioned in the communique was the "preservation and promotion of the cultural identity of the East Timorese."

On the issue of language Alatas rejected suggestions that Portuguese be taught in schools throughout the province, arguing that Indonesian and the local Tetun language had been used since East Timor's integration.(mds)