United Nations – The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend its peacekeeping and nation-building operation in East Timor until the former Portuguese colony declares independence on May 20.

The United Nations has been administering East Timor since late 1999, a few months after Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia, which invaded the territory in 1975 after Portugal pulled out.

Peacekeeping troops, which once numbered 8,000, will be cut down to 5,000 and some 1,200 police and at least 100 administrators will remain until May.

The council's resolution said it expected specific proposals on a successor mission to the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, known as UNTAET, before May 20.

With East Timor's economy and political structures extremely fragile, UN officials have argued for a presence until 2004 as part of a peacekeeping mission, which has to be funded by all members, rather than voluntary contributions.

But how many personnel will be kept on until then is still under discussion, with nations like the United States and France wanting to see the mission wind down sooner rather than later.

Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's foreign minister and the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told the council on Wednesday he was "still concerned about the ability of some former militia elements to destabilize the country."

Shortly after the independence vote in August 1999, militia and Indonesian soldiers, conducted a scorched-earth campaign to protest the poll. Many militia fled to Indonesian West Timor from where they have sporadically conducted raids.

"We ask the council to endorse the concept of a successor mission" on terms the United Nations was formulating, Ramos-Horta said.