Members of the Indonesian government and Aceh rebel leaders cut short talks on tsunami relief operations and ways of ending a 30-year conflict in the breakaway region, but Finnish mediators invited them to continue negotiations later.
The two sides met at a secluded manor house north of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, for talks convened by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.
Ahtisaari did not reveal why the closed-door talks, which had been scheduled to continue yesterday, finished a day early, but said he had invited both parties for a second round of meetings in Helsinki.
Neither party had yet accepted the invitation, Ahtisaari said, adding that he would be "highly disappointed" if they did not return to Helsinki.
Indonesian Communications Minister Sofyan Djalil described the meetings as "quite hopeful" and said that the two sides would meet again soon.
Ahtisaari said no cease-fire agreement had been reached and declined to comment on the stands of the two sides.
In the eastern part of Aceh province, Indonesian troops clashed with rebels, leaving four rebels dead, Lieutenant Colonel Eddyana Sulistiadie, an Indonesian military spokesman said yesterday. Government troops were unhurt, he said.
Sulistiadie identified one of the slain rebels as Amin Syarief, a rebel commander in rural Madat, and said troops confiscated a cache of weapons in the skirmish Saturday. Such small-scale battles are not uncommon.
Ahtisaari said representatives of the Indonesian government approached him in February, followed by more contacts last month before the tsunami disaster with the government and the Free Aceh Movement, locally known as GAM.
Ahtisaari urged both sides to agree quickly on humanitarian aid so that talks could continue on ending the dispute in Aceh province, where rebels have been fighting for independence since 1976.
"It's not an easy thing to start after so many years of distrust that have developed. On the other hand, I don't think we have an enormous amount of time either," Ahtisaari said. "The question is can we be so successful that we can actually ... go much further in our efforts to try to find a comprehensive settlement."
The Indonesian government said that despite the setback it would continue its tsunami aid operations.
"Whatever the result of the meeting in Helsinki, there will be no impact on the emergency relief effort in Aceh," said Budi Atmaji, who is leading the Indonesian government's tsunami relief effort in the province. "The relief operation will continue as usual."
Ahtisaari also appealed to donor countries to give all the aid they had promised to the tsunami-ravaged region.
Several countries, including France, had encouraged Ahtisaari to continue mediation efforts, as well as Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Ahtisaari, 67, a former peacebroker in Kosovo, was Finland's president from 1994-2000 and has held senior UN posts including commissioner for Namibia and undersecretary-general for management and administration. He was special adviser to the UN secretary-general on the former Yugoslavia in 1993.
He likened the Aceh mediation efforts to a fishing trip.
"This sort of process is a little bit like when you go and try to catch salmon. The salmon is such a good fish that it's worthwhile fishing even if you don't get it," he said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS