Subject: AFP - Annan holds "very
constructive" ETimor meeting with ministers
From: "Paula" <paularoque@mail.telepac.pt>Received from Joyo: *Annan
holds "very constructive" ETimor meeting with ministers
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 (AFP) - UN chief Kofi Annan held "very constructive"
talks Sunday on East Timor with Portugal and Indonesia after Indonesian Foreign Minister
Ali Alatas clarified Jakarta's independence offer.
Annan spoke to reporters outside his New York residence after holding an hour- long
meeting with Alatas, Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama and UN special representative
Jamsheed Marker.
"We've had a very constructive meeting," said Annan, before leaving for the
funeral of Jordan's King Hussein.
Alatas stressed to reporters that wide-ranging autonomy plans being negotiated with
Portugal through the United Nations remained the "best solution" as far as
Jakarta was concerned.
"We hope that by April at the latest we can have a model that we can show to the
Indonesian people and of course to the East Timorese," Alatas said.
Reaffirming Jakarta's opposition to a referendum, Alatas said that "the
methodology still has to be discussed" as to how the East Timorese would be consulted
on the autonomy plan.
"But if and when they reject it, then we are not going to accept a proposal that
we give autonomy and then, in three to five years, independence. No let's go
straight," he said.
Alatas said that if the autonomy plan was rejected, East Timor would revert to its 1976
position as "a non self-governing territory with Portugal as its administering
territory and still within the fold of the UN."
Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and annexed it the following
year, in a move never recognised by the United Nations.
Gama said that in the light of Indonesia's new position, made public on January 27,
"obviously all this problem is coming into a new direction."
Gama added he had asked Annan to "create a mission for monitoring the second
option of Indonesia" to prepare East Timor for independence.
The UN-sponsored talks on broad-ranging autonomy were to continue here later Sunday and
Monday at ministerial level.
Senior officials from both countries reached agreement Friday on technical details, but
political input was needed from the two ministers as the talks moved into a new phase on
the territory's final status.
Alatas categorically denied Indonesia was arming civilians in East Timor in a move said
to be fuelling violence.
Annan said Indonesia had promised "they will make sure that the violence does not
increase in the region, and that they would also not interfere with the democratic rights
of the people."
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