UN chief upbeat on East Timor

UN chief upbeat on East Timor

JAKARTA (JP): United Nations Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali is confident that negotiations between Indonesia
and Portugal to settle the status of East Timor will eventually
bear fruit, a senior Indonesian official said yesterday.

During a meeting with President Soeharto, Boutros-Ghali said
that the efforts to resolve the East Timor problem should be
continued, Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono told reporters.

The UN chief believes that a solution will be found in due
course, Moerdiono said.

Boutros-Ghali has presided over a number of meetings between
the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal in the last two
years, to decide on the status of the former Portuguese colony.

The next round of meetings, originally scheduled for next
month in Geneva, has been postponed indefinitely, to wait for the
outcome of a dialog among the conflicting East Timorese factions
planned for June, in Salzburg, Austria.

During the meeting, Soeharto underlined the importance of the
intra-East Timorese dialog, Moerdiono said, adding that both
leaders also agreed to support the holding of the dialog.

The intra-East Timorese dialog, which is an initiative of
Boutros-Ghali, was nearly derailed after Indonesia and pro-
Indonesia East Timorese complained that they were not consulted
about the lists of invitations. Responding to the complaints, the
conference was postponed to June.

The United Nations still recognizes Lisbon as the owner of
East Timor, although its colonial administration abandoned it in
1975, leaving in its wake a bloody civil war. The following year,
tribal leaders representing the majority of East Timorese
declared their desire to become part of Indonesia, hence the
integration with the republic.

The East Timor issue was one of the topics raised during the
meeting, which lasted more than one hour between Soeharto and
Boutros-Ghali, at the Merdeka Palace yesterday.

The UN Chief, according to Moerdiono, praised Indonesia in
supporting the United Nations and its various operations.

Soeharto explained that the Indonesian constitution mandates
that the country play an active role in promoting peace and
justice in the world. Indonesia's participation and contribution
on this front has been made possible by the economic progress
that Indonesia has achieved, he said.

Indonesia has taken part in various UN peacekeeping operations
worldwide, including the latest ones in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Somalia and Cambodia. Also, Indonesia currently holds a non-
permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Soeharto, who is chairman of the 112-nation Non-Aligned
Movement, explained to his guest about the group's current
efforts to enhance cooperation between developing countries, or
the South-South cooperation, and promoting dialog between
Southern countries and industrialized countries of the North.

Moerdiono disclosed to reporters that Soeharto, as NAM
chairman, plans to issue another plea to leaders of the Group of
Seven industrialized countries, before their next summit in June
in Canada, to address the North-South dialog.

Two years ago, Soeharto traveled to Tokyo to meet with a
number of G-7 leaders with a similar proposal.

Soeharto and Boutros-Ghali also discussed the situation in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and other former Yugoslavia republics, in
light of the peace initiative launched by the Indonesian
president during his visit to Sarajevo and Zagreb last month.

Soeharto stressed that Indonesia has no ambition of becoming a
mediator in the conflict, because any solution can only be worked
out by the parties of the conflicts themselves.

The Indonesian proposal, which calls for the establishment of
a confederation of the former republics of Yugoslavia, is for a
two-step meeting. The first involving solely the warring parties,
and the second, an international conference to endorse the
agreements made.

Moerdiono said Indonesia's senior diplomat, Nana Sutresna, is
currently preparing a report on the status of the proposal,
following his visit to Belgrade and other capitals of the former
Yugoslavia republics. (emb)