| Subject: Australia opens
talks with East Timorese leaders over oil Australia opens talks with East Timorese leaders over oil
SYDNEY, Oct 13 (AFP) - Australia has begun talks with East
Timorese leaders over the Timor Gap treaty under which Australia and Indonesia share oil
revenue from the Timor Sea, officials said Wednesday.
The oil-rich Timor Gap lies off Timor's south coast in what
is expected to be the newly independent East Timor's territorial waters and could provide
the impoverished nation with its most important revenue source.
Reports from Jakarta said Indonesia had frozen the Timor
Gap treaty because of a serious downturn in relations between the two countries over East
Timor.
An Australian-led international peacekeeping force is
trying to restore stability in the territory ravaged by an Indonesian-backed terror
campaign since it opted for independence in its August 30 ballot.
Australia's leading of the force and its criticism of human
rights abuses in the territory have prompted fierce accusations of betrayal in Indonesia.
Canberra was the only industrialised country to recognise
Indonesia's annexation of East Timor in 1976.
The official Indonesian news agency Antara quoted
Indonesian Navy chief Admiral Achmad Sutjipto as saying naval operations with Australia to
monitor the waters of the Timor Gap had been suspended.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra
had been implementing a transition strategy for the oil treaty through talks with the
United Nations and East Timorese representatives.
Downer told parliament on Tuesday that a senior East
Timorese independence official had confirmed East Timor's desire to move forward on future
treaty arrangements.
Resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, who is staying in
Australia prior to his return within weeks to East Timor, told a business audience on
Monday that oil would be among his country's major exports.
Downer said: "We see this as consistent with an early
and smooth transition providing a solid basis for continued long term investment in the
Timor Gap.
"We are happy with the way the discussions are
proceeding. We do think that the Indonesian government will be very cooperative in the
process of the transition and equally all the signs are very positive."
The Indonesian government said on September 7 that it was
fully prepared to cancel the treaty signed in 1989 with Australia over oil and gas
extraction rights in the sea between Timor and Australia.
"That treaty was between the government of Indonesia
and Australia, but because East Timor will in the future no longer be Indonesian
territory, for legal reasons, that treaty can no longer be implemented," Mines and
Energy Minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto said.
The area in the Timor Sea covered by the treaty is believed
to hold hydrocarbon reserves worth some eight billion US dollars but only around 1.1
million dollars worth of oil and gas was exploited last year, industry sources said.
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