Dean Yates and Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta – Indonesia on Wednesday labelled as "irrelevant" a visit by UN experts who will inquire into bloodshed that swept East Timor in 1999 during an independence vote as well as into Jakarta's accounting for the violence.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed several legal experts to a fact-finding team earlier this year, a move that has already irritated Indonesia, which had initially refused to give the members visas to visit.

"From our perspective and from Timor Leste's (East Timor's) perspective, this is irrelevant," Information Minister Sofyan Djalil said in an interview when asked about the visit.

Asked how much the government would cooperate with the experts, who began arriving late on Tuesday, Djalil said: "East Timor and Indonesia have agreed to see our relations as more important for the future than problems of the past... This (UN) issue is not raised by Indonesia or East Timor."

A rampage in the former Portuguese colony, carried out by gangs supported by elements in the Indonesian army, was triggered by a referendum in which East Timor voted to break free from Jakarta after 24 years of brutal military rule.

The United Nations estimates that around 1,000 people were killed before and after the vote. An Indonesian special human rights court set up after the violence tried 18 Indonesian military, police officers and civilians over the violence.

Most were acquitted in legal hearings that have almost drawn to a close. Some Western countries criticised proceedings.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said officials would start meeting the UN experts on Thursday. Officials had said they would begin the review on Wednesday, but not all the experts have arrived.

The UN team includes an Indian judge, a Japanese law professor and a Fijian lawyer.

A UN official who declined to be identified has said Annan, during a trip to Jakarta last month, raised with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the Indonesian government's refusal to allow the team members to visit.

Indonesia and East Timor have set up a separate joint truth and friendship commission, which they had hoped would head off Annan's initiative. The commission, due to start work in August, will have no power to punish anyone over abuses.

The United States said this month that Indonesia would not enjoy full military ties with Washington until it accounted for the violence in East Timor, saying this included cooperating with the UN team of legal experts.

Washington severed military ties after the sacking of East Timor in 1999, and has only begun to revive such cooperation.

Mainly Catholic East Timor has said it wants to have good ties with its giant Muslim neighbour despite the destruction of most of the tiny territory in 1999.

East Timor became independent in May 2002 after two-and-a-half years of UN administration following the referendum.

(Additional reporting by Telly Nathalia)