Jakarta – The United States government has maintained its support for the unitary state of Indonesia, saying it will never back any effort by Aceh separatists to secede from the country, aUS official said in Washington D.C. on Friday.

"The US government and people hope Indonesia could maintain its integrity," the US State Department's director for the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, Robert Fitts, told Antara.

Commenting on the Free Aceh Movement (GAM)'s demand for independence for the province, Fitts said such separatism could not be considered the demand of all Acehnese as GAM only represented one group.

He, however, noted that the Indonesian government should settle the problems in Aceh by fully understanding all of the aspirations of the Acehnese. He said what the US supported was the search for internal political and economic solutions through negotiation, not force. The US, he pointed out, believed efforts to settle any problem using military force would only bring Indonesia to a difficult position in the international community.

On the possible resumption of military cooperation between Indonesia and the US, Fitts said Washington would pay more attention to police cooperation as the US government believed the Indonesian National Police would play a bigger role in stabilizing Indonesia.

After the police force separated from the Indonesian Military and a system of democracy was implemented in Indonesia, the US took the view that the police would begin to play a larger role in maintaining security, he added.

The US government always supports the Indonesian government in settling all its domestic problems through negotiation, not through a military approach, he asserted.

Fitts further said the Bush administration was ready to help Indonesia improve the quality of its police force. A cooperation between the two countries' police forces could be in the form of education by providing some Indonesian police personnel with special training in the US, he said.