UN hopes for better talks on East Timor
UN hopes for better talks on East Timor
UNITED NATIONS (Reuter): The United Nations hopes a meeting
yesterday between the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal
to discuss the tricky question of East Timor will lead to more
substantial talks on the issue.
A senior U.N. official said the aim was to hold a round of
working talks by mid-July, possibly in New York, and then to keep
the momentum going with subsequent sessions.
According to Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas,
Thursday's round "will mostly deal with procedures, like the
format, parameters, the modalities."
"I hope nobody expects we will go immediately into the
substance. We have to lay the groundwork for the talks
themselves," he said in an interview.
Talks under U.N. auspices to find an internationally
acceptable solution were initiated in 1983 by then-Secretary-
General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
The current two days of meetings between Portuguese Foreign
Minister Jaime Gama and Alatas, will be the ninth in the series
but the first presided over by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who
took office in January.
In a bid to revive the flagging negotiations, Annan appointed
former Pakistani U.N. ambassador Jamsheed Marker as his personal
representative for East Timor. Marker, who has since visited
Portugal and Indonesia, including the disputed territory, will
chair the talks after Annan presides over Thursday's opening
session.
The eighth round of talks was held in London in June 1996. A
session scheduled for late December was called off after then-
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali failed to win re-election
and Annan was chosen to succeed him.
U.N. officials acknowledge the two sides are still far apart.
Portugal insists East Timor must be decolonized and its
inhabitants allowed to determine their own future.
Indonesia argues that East Timor was decolonized as a result
of a decision by its inhabitants to opt for independence through
integration with Indonesia. It denies charges by Portugal and
others of large-scale human rights violations and says Fretilin
guerrillas, who proclaimed East Timor's independence in 1975 as
the territory erupted in civil war, represented only a minority.
Reiterating Indonesia's case, Alatas said the Portuguese "left
East Timor the same way (they) left Angola and Mozambique. So the
East Timorese decolonized themselves. As far as we are concerned
decolonization is over."
Alatas said he had the impression Annan was "seriously
committed to try to find a solution," which he said by its very
definition had to be a compromise.
But the Indonesian minister was not convinced the Portuguese
were as committed to finding a solution. "In their calculation,
it may be better for them to stick to their guns and wait and
stay put for the time being because (they believe) Indonesia in
the end will give in... They are waiting for a change of the
government," he added.