Kono urges Indonesian official to resolve pending issues

Asian Economic News, Nov 13, 2000

TOKYO, Nov. 7 Kyodo

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono urged a visiting Indonesian minister on Tuesday to continue efforts to resolve pending issues in Indonesia, including containing militias in West Timor, a ministry official said.

Kono told Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Japan praises Indonesia's ongoing attempts to control the situation in West Timor and hopes the efforts will continue, the official said.

Yudhoyono said Jakarta is trying to resolve the militia and refugee issues simultaneously, according to the official.

Indonesia is calling on the militiamen in West Timor to disarm and disband, while some 100,000 East Timorese refugees remaining in Indonesian territory have yet to be settled. Some want to return to East Timor while others would like to remain in West Timor.

Indonesia was put under intense international pressure to contain the pro-Jakarta militias operating in West Timor after three foreign aid workers of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were killed Sept. 6 in an attack by thousands of militia-led refugees on a UNHCR office there.

East Timor is in a transitional phase of separating from Indonesia following a U.N.-organized referendum in August 1999 in which a vast majority of its residents voted for independence.