Spurred by the tsunami disaster, members of the Indonesian government and the Aceh rebel movement discussed relief operations in the disaster-hit area in talks aimed at ending a 30-year conflict in the breakaway region.
The two sides met face-to-face Friday at a secluded manor house north of the Finnish capital, Helsinki, in a meeting convened by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.
"The meeting was very constructive and was carried out in a positive spirit," said Pauliina Arola, executive director of the president's office. "They discussed the humanitarian crisis. It was the most urgent issue."
Arola said the closed-door talks will continue during the next few days, but declined to give details.
A spokesman for Aceh rebel leaders said he was cautiously optimistic after Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono offered them concessions in return for a ceasefire.
"It sounds positive from our point of view," Bakhtiar Abdullah, a spokesman from the Free Aceh Movement, locally known as GAM, said on arrival in Helsinki on Thursday. "But we'll have to see how far we can take the talks."
Abdullah said the five-member GAM delegation, led by the self-exiled government's president, Malik Mahmoud, will focus on making it safe for relief workers to help rebuild Aceh in the wake of the tsunami.
"That's the most important part of the negotiations," he said.
Arola said Ahtisaari's office had been "keenly following the situation in Indonesia" for about a year before the tsunami disaster and had been negotiating to bring the two parties together.
"There was interest also from our side to follow up the situation ... already before the humanitarian catastrophe," Arola said in an interview with reporters. "I think the tsunami has brought a certain sense of urgency to the situation."
Ahtisaari, 67, 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.
In Jakarta, Yudhoyono said the government has offered rebel leaders a chance to "terminate the conflict peacefully, of course in the framework of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia and by adopting the special autonomy status."
The warring sides are meeting to bring about a formal ceasefire. Indonesia wants the talks to be followed by more substantive negotiations on the status of Aceh.
GAM has been fighting since 1976 for independence for the province of 4.1 million people on the northern tip of Sumatra island. A previous truce collapsed in 2003 when the Indonesian military launched a new offensive against the insurgents.
At the time, Indonesia's Parliament approved a special autonomy package for the resource-rich province which would give its people self-government while keeping them within Indonesia, but the measure was never implemented because of the fighting.
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