The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zacarias da Costa met last Friday, January 27, with the United Nations Headquarters delegation led by Mr. Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, Director of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations from the Asia and Middle East Division .

The UN Delegation is in Timor-Leste with the purpose to do an assessment of the Timor-Leste situation and gather views of the role of the United Nations mission which will replace UNMIT, in January 2013. As part of the agenda the delegation will meet with the Government, opposition, donors and civil society.

According to Zacarias da Costa “They want to know Timor-Leste’s ideas regarding the post-UNMIT arrangement. The idea is for us to have a politically strong presence which to dialogue with the Government, which can mobilize financial and human resources for technical areas that we most need”.

Various options for the format of the next UN presence were highlighted at the meeting. These options will be part of a report with the appropriate recommendations, “We will live the decision for the next Government. I must say that we want to keep a long partnership with United Nations, but this Government can only recommend.  We would like UN to continue to have some visibility here. A presence that must not interfere with the sovereignty of Timor-Leste”, said Minister Zacarias da Costa.