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ASEAN countries, EU to send Aceh peace monitors
Southeast Asian and European countries have agreed to contribute to a peace monitoring mission in Indonesia's Aceh province, officials said, but a regional peacekeeping force remains only a distant possibility in Southeast Asia. AFP reported that Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said he made a formal request to colleagues from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to help monitor a peace deal to be signed August 15 with Aceh separatist rebels. He said some nations gave "firm commitments" to supply monitors in Indonesia's westernmost province, where the rebel GAM movement and the government are due to sign the deal ending some 30 years of strife. "So far, countries from ASEAN that we have asked to contribute to the Aceh peace monitoring mission have expressed their willingness," Wirayuda told AFP, naming Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines. He said a meeting to work out the mechanics of the proposed mission would take place in Jakarta in the second week of August, and that his government hoped the arrangment would blossom into a regular ASEAN arrangement. Foreign monitors were first deployed to Aceh under a short-lived ceasefire agreed in 2002. But a few dozen unarmed monitors from Thailand and the Philippines were forced to withdraw amid escalating violence. Malaysia and Brunei have also supplied about 60 military personnel to the southern Philippines. Early last year Indonesia proposed that ASEAN set up its own peacekeeping force as part of the ASEAN Security Community, the 10-nation bloc's general pledge to live in peace. But there has been little further talk of the idea. Singapore expressed reservations, arguing that ASEAN is not a security or defense organization, while Vietnam was also reportedly cool to the proposal. Wirayuda acknowledged that some nations had expressed "sensitivities" about such a move. Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said the proposed multilateral Aceh mission would be a sign of the region's willingness to deal with such problems. "It's increasingly becoming the norm that ASEAN countries assist one another in such an undertaking. It shows that ASEAN is increasingly becoming more mature in its capacity in dealing with security issues," Natalegawa said. He said the European Union has also committed to send monitors, the details of which would be firmed when EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana attends ASEAN's regional security forum here Thursday. The monitors would oversee the decommissioning and destruction of weapons that would be surrendered by GAM, as well as the peaceful withdrawal of the Indonesian forces from the region, Natalegawa said. Wirayuda on Wednesday met with New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff in bilateral talks that also focussed on Aceh. "I think that it is very important that the EU and the countries in ASEAN will contribute a monitoring organization as part of confidence building that will help achieve the outcome that the Indonesian government and negotiators of GAM are looking forward to," Goff told reporters.
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