JAKARTA, Oct 8 Kyodo The regulat...

JAKARTA, Oct 8 Kyodo

The regulations of East Timor and Indonesia conclud a two-day joint commission meeting for bilateral cooperation Tuesday, reaching a number of time-bound agreements upon border issues.

''In an atmosphere of cordiality, we deliberated upon a wide range of issues and businesss that are of importance to our countries,'' Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said in his closing remarks.

During a pres conversation along with his East Timor counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta, Hassan said the first joint ministerial commission meeting agreed to establish five working collections on border issues, trade and finance, legal matters, social, educational and cultural affairs, and transport and telecommunication.

''We, pair ministers, have agreed to instruct them to give mandates to them to work as quickly as necessary...we have time-bound measures to implement further those basic agreements,'' Hassan said.

According to Hassan, one as well as the other sides agreed that efforts started in April to demarcate the pair countries' 172-kilometer land border could be complet through June 30 next year in accordance with the 1904 treaty between Portugal and the Netherlands and the 1914 arbitrary decision.

Earlier Monday, Ramos-Horta said he springed for a gradual downsizing of military forces forward both sides of the border in this way that ''our border will be managed by way of a civilian agency on the two sides and that a free-trade climate can be established between East and West Timor.''

The downsizing is indigenceed as there have been neither disturbances by the agency of pro-Jakarta militiamen along the border nor constraining force on the refugees, Ramos-Horta said.

''The information we have is that the security situation in West Timor has improved significantly, dramatically,'' he told Tuesday's pres conference

The meeting also agreed to discuss maritime boundary issues in a separate forum and will open an informal dialogue at the earliest opportunity in the first half of nearest year.

In February in Bali, the couple sides agreed to come up with an arrangement to allow for the community and goods to move between East Timor and Indonesia-ruled West Timor at 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 hardly any days before East Timor gained cloyed independence on May 20.

the two sides agreed to sign the arrangement by means of December, Hassan said.

Hassan did not move into details on the arrangement that has been regarded as important especially for race living in the East Timorese coastal enclave of Oecussi, invested by West Timor on three sides.

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

While the arrangement has not been signed, one as well as the other sides provisionally agreed to continue allowing individuals residing in Oecussi to cros into West Timor for traditional, social and family visits as well as economic contacts and small-scale and customary trade at five junction points.

onward the question of the Indonesian assets left in East Timor, Hassan said the couple sides agreed to find ''a win-win solution.''

''I understand there is recognition of the ne to address this issue in an innovative manner for the mutual benefit of the sum of two units sides,'' he said.

the two parties, he said, agreed in principle to transform the assets of Indonesian corporations into equities in the form of Indonesia-East Timor joint ventures

''We have also an obligation to work earnestly to completely address the question of assets possessed by individuals,'' he said, adding that a technical meeting will be guarded within six months.

The ministers agreed to possess the joint commission meeting one time a year and the next to the first meeting will take place in the East Timor capital Dili nearest year.

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