Indonesia resumes fuel supplies to East Timor

JAKARTA, March 28 (AFP) - Indonesia's state oil and gas company Pertamina has resumed supplies of fuel to East Timor halted by the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) last week, a report said Wednesday.

"We are supplying fuel to East Timor as before after Pertamina made some clarifications to the UNTAET," the acting head of Pertamina's chapter in Kupang, West Timor, Wahyu Riyadi told the Kompas daily.

He said the supplies resumed over the weekend. Fuel supplies were halted on Tuesday after UNTAET refused two of the three tanktrucks carrying 10,000 litres of diesel oil from Pertamina's depot in Kupang, saying they were contaminated with water and other substances.

"The results of our own testing showed that the diesel oil was normal, not mixed with water or other particles as UNTAET suspected," Riyadi said, adding the test results had been handed to the UNTAET.

"I think this disruption was only the result of a misunderstanding, the proof is that after we clarified it to the UNTAET, it accepted it and the supply of fuel to East Timor could be resumed," he said.

The former Portuguese territory of East Timor is now under UN adminstration after voting overwhelmingly in 1999 to end two decades of Indonesian occupation.

bs/kw/jkb AFP

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