Jakarta – Thirty MPs from Indonesia's Aceh province Wednesday urged the nation's highest legislative body to give the troubled region a broad-based autonomy along the lines proposed for East Timor.

The 35 members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) met with leaders of a working group preparing MPR decrees and an amendment to the constitution to go before the plenary session later this week.

"There is a need for a political settlement of the Aceh case," the group said in a statement handed to the chairman of the working committee. It said that such a political settlement could be contained in a contitutional amendment and through MPR decrees.

The group proposed broad autonomy for Aceh that would relinquish all power to the provincial authorities except for foreign affairs, external defence and monetary and fiscal policies.

The group did not give further details on the scheme which appeared similar to the broad autonomy package offered by Jakarta to East Timor. That offer was rejected in favor of independence from Indonesia in a UN ballot in East Timor in August. A Timor-type autonomy for Aceh was proposed in detail by a group of Aceh intellectuals, academics and politicians last month.

The MPs also urged the MPR to task the new government to "earnestly and honestly assure justice against violators of human rights in Aceh during or after" the decade of anti-rebel military operations which only ended last year.