Indonesia is on the brink of making a major concession to separatist rebels in tsunami-hit Aceh ahead of a new round of peace talks to end a decades-old war, reports said yesterday.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has sought the support needed to offer the rebels political representation under an autonomy deal -- a key negotiating point that would sidestep Indonesia's 60-year-old constitution, the reports said.
Yudhoyono met with the leaders of prominent parties late Wednesday in an effort to push his proposal and dispel parliamentary opposition to an ongoing dialogue with the rebels, set to conclude next week in Helsinki.
Malem Sambat Kaban, who is the chair of the Crescent and Star Party, said that the president wanted parliament to allow former Free Aceh Movement, or GAM, rebels to stand for election as district chiefs.
This would get around Indonesian law under which groups wanting political representation must form national parties with a country-wide power base.
Top security minister Widodo Adisucipto last month rejected the demand by rebel negotiators that rebels be allowed to take part in future local elections.
Kaban said Yudhoyono's entreaties were positively received, but full cooperation from parliament would depend on rebel willingness to abandon full claims to resource-rich Aceh.
"In principle, all parties agreed and support it, if the GAM opts for peaceful negotiations with the government. We, from the political parties, have no objection," he said, according to the Detikcom online news service.
The move comes amid political criticism of the talks in Finland with the Free Aceh Movement, which some parties say is an internal conflict that should not be discussed in the international arena.
Indonesia began new talks with the rebels in the wake of last year's tsunami, reviving a dialogue abandoned ahead of a major government offensive in 2003 that sparked some of the worst violence in a conflict that began in 1976.
Kaban said that the political leaders had also agreed to allow former guerrillas to run for the vice governorship of Aceh, but not the top post in the province.
"As long as it is still within the 1945 constitution ... we will be open to the political participation of former GAM members if they want to run [in elections]," Abdillah Toha of the National Mandate Party said, according to Detikcom.
Vice President Yusuf Kalla on Wednesday said the government was finalizing a draft peace deal with GAM and would use next week's talks in Finland to set up a formal meeting to end the conflict that has left almost 15,000 people dead.
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