HELSINKI: A top-level delegation from Indonesia and exiled rebel leaders seeking the independence of the country's tsunami devastated Aceh Province gathered in Helsinki yesterday to try to restart peace talks.

The delegation is the most senior Indonesia has sent for talks with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Both sides arrived in snow-covered Helsinki for the negotiations which will be closed to the media and may last until Sunday.

Aceh bore the brunt of last month's Indian Ocean disaster and the tragedy prompted offers of a ceasefire and renewed peace efforts, which were disrupted 21 months ago in the conflict that has killed some 12,000 people since 1976.

Finnish mediators said they saw the seniority of the delegates as a signal of a "strong commitment" to peace in the gas-rich province on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra.

Chief Security Minister Widodo Adi Sutjipto heads Jakarta's team with the justice and information ministers. They did not talk to reporters on arrival.

Foreign Minister Hasan Wirajuda said in Jakarta he was not attending because "the dialogue on the Aceh separatist conflict is not a diplomatic matter."

GAM flew in from nearby Stockholm, headquarters for decades of its government-in-exile.

It was unclear whether Indonesia expects GAM to simply drop demands for independence, but a government source in Jakarta said: "Their bargaining position now is quite weak."

The rebels' spokesman Bakhtiar Abdullah said in Stockholm before flying to Helsinki that his side had no preconditions.

"We will talk and give our views and then it is up to the facilitator to see where we go from there... (but) the conflict has been going on for the last 30 years, you cannot solve problems overnight or over the weekend."

The mediators are Crisis Management Initiative, brainchild of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.

(China Daily 01/28/2005 page8)