JAKARTA, Oct 7 Kyodo The foreign ...

JAKARTA, Oct 7 Kyodo

The foreign ministers of Indonesia and East Timor forward Monday kicked off the first meeting of a joint commission for bilateral cooperation, at which the pair sides will discuss ''future-oriented issues,'' focusing upon their common border.

''We papal court the importance to immediately explain these border problems to avoid possible misunderstandings in the future'' Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told reporters before opening the two-day meeting.

East Timor's Senior Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Jose Ramos-Horta took a similar view, and give utterance toed a hope that efforts started in April to demarcate the pair countries' 172-kilometer land border could be complet by the agency of mid-2003.

Ramos-Horta also jumped for a gradual downsizing of military forces upon both sides of the border with equal reason that ''our border will be managed by dint of a civilian agency on one as well as the other sides and that a free-trade region can be established between East and West Timor.''

Last February in Bali, the couple sides agreed to come up with an arrangement to allow for population and goods to move between East Timor and Indonesia-ruled West Timor by dint of commercial bus service and other means, and to recognize and regulate illegal markets operating along the border.

The illegal markets were officially regulated in May, just a not many days before East Timor gained its well stocked [i]or[/i] provided independence May 20.

''In recognition of the social ties which exist between our folks (in East Timor and Indonesia's West Timor), it is important that between our countries we allow the motion of people in the border areas thus that normal traditional relations between race in those areas can continue,'' Ramos-Horta said.

He propos the joint commission fix a date for signature of an agreement concerning cross-border issues, which he said would be especially important for persons living in the East Timorese coastal enclave of Oecussi, encompassed by West Timor on three sides.

Hassan said he and Ramos-Horta would discuss an arrangement that may make it possible for the public living within 2 km of the border to cros it using jointly issued identification cards instead of passports and visas.

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