Oslo – Most of the 60,000 East Timorese refugees still abroad are likely to return by the end of 2002 and any linked to pro-Jakarta militias will be treated fairly, the territory's chief minister said on Wednesday.

The United Nations estimates that 190,000 East Timorese have returned to the territory after they fled when a 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia led to a bloodbath triggered by Jakarta-backed militias.

"They are returning at a rate of 800 to 1,000 a week," Mari Alkatiri, chief minister of the recently elected assembly, told a news conference after a two-day conference in Oslo involving 23 nations interested in providing aid the East Timor. "I'm quite sure that by the end of next year most of the refugees will be back in East Timor," he told a news conference.

The UN refugee agency estimates there are still 60,000 refugees, many in Indonesian-run West Timor.

The donors' conference, opened by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday, discussed plans to raise up to about $350 million in aid at another conference to be held in East Timor around the time of its becoming independent, planned for May 20.

Alkatiri said that any refugees linked to the anti-independence militias, which had had active backing and encouragement from the Indonesian military, would find that "justice does not only mean punishment but also rehabilitation".

The United Nations, which has administered East Timor since 1999, estimates that 1,000 people died in the anti-independence violence.

Norwegian Development Minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson said that donor states seemed willing to aid East Timor in the long term, until it could shift towards earning its own money from oil and gas or coffee. "Our assessment is that East Timor is on the right track," she told a news conference.