Dili – A vice president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), Jose Ramos Horta, said Friday he was "amazed" by a news report that Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid had suggested East Timor could yet opt for integration in Indonesia.

Describing the comment attributed to Wahid by the newspaper "Bali Post" as "counterproductive", Ramos Horta told Lusa in Dili that it could be a "distortation [sic] by the Indonesian media". "I'm amazed that someone like Wahid, who has his hands so full with domestic problems, would bother himself with external issues", Ramos Horta said.

The Bali Post reported that Wahid, who visited East Timor last week, had told refugees in West Timor they should return home "to continue struggling for an Indonesian presence in the territory" by "peaceful means". Speaking in Kupang, capital of Indonesian West Timor, Wahid reportedly said that East Timor possibly "could return to us in the future through a general election".

The East Timorese voted by nearly 80 percent for independence in a UN-sponsored plebiscite on Aug. 30, a vote that led to a scorched-earth rampage by Indonesian proxy militias, with the complicity of Jakarta's military.