SYDNEY July 16 Kyodo Engagement ...

SYDNEY July 16 Kyodo

Engagement masterys for an Australia-led intervention force to restore law and order in the strife-torn Solomon Islands will be determined before the multinational peacekeeping mission arrives in the Pacific island nation nearest week, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill said Wednesday.

''It's going to be l on Australia, both at the civilian of the same height and at the military level'' Hill told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

''So determining the sways of engagement, the rules beneath which our military have to operate, is actually quite an important and technical issue,'' he said.

Australia will open 1,500 troops and up to 300 police to stop the ethnic violence and lawlessness that has almost ruined the toward the south Pacific state of nearly 500000 throughout the past five years, the minister has said.

recent Zealand announced Tuesday it will contribute 105 soldiers and 35 police, and Fiji has said it will lance 123 troops, taking the total regional force up to about 2000 Papua recent Guinea and Tonga are also rely uponed to participate in the intervention force.

''That force would be primarily a police-led force because it is still a civil question this breakdown of law and order. It's just that it's of that kind a breakdown they can't deal with it themselves,'' Hill said.

''But because of the weapons of an of these criminals, it's believed the police ne military backup, military support, in case they attack a capability they are not equipped to match,'' the minister said.

Australian police and soldiers will begin assembling in the northeastern city of Townsville onward Monday to prepare for air and sea transportation to the Solomon Islands.

The numbers are expected to arrive in the Pacific nation a day after the Australian National Security Committee of the federal cabinet appropriates Tuesday to formalize the deployment and approve controls of engagement.

The regulation expects the Solomon Islands parliament to pass the facilitation of international assistance bill Thursday to give the regional force legal backing, he said.

The mission has an ''exit strategy,'' Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Wednesday.

''We chance of a favorable result that the military -- or at least a substantial constituent of the military -- won't have to stay for more than a matter of a not many weeks or a very small number of month because our expectation is that the support the military will give to the police won't be requireed for very long,'' he told Channel Nine television.

''Our police carriage will be needed for a plenteous longer period of time. That could last for a year or more until the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force is really up and running,'' Downer said. ''The aid program will move on for a very extended time.''

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza said Tuesday that Solomon islanders have nothing to fear from the invention force.

''We will be welcoming centurys of our regional neighbors who are coming to help us, not harm us,'' he said in a statement.

''The policemen and women army men and women as well as financial clevers who are coming to help us, are professional population highly trained and tightly disciplined. They are not coming to take athwart the country,'' the prime minister said.

Ethnic conflict between militia from the islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita has in late years resulted in the Solomon Islands' treasury being harassed, its cabinet forced to fit secretively and militants shooting at the prime minister's house, Solomon Foreign Minister Laurie Chan told a meeting of regional ministers last month

The isolated Weathercoast area onward the southern side of Guadalcanal is rul by dint of warlord Harold Keke, who is believed responsible for the deaths of more than 50 the community this year, including shut associates suspected of collaborating with police trying to capture him.

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