Jakarta – An EU-led team monitoring a peace deal in tsunami-ravaged Aceh province will extend its mission by at least three more months to oversee crucial elections, Indonesia's vice president said Friday.

The 200-strong mission has been in Aceh since August, monitoring a peace agreement between a small separatist rebel army and government troops that ended 29 years of fighting.

"We have agreed that the mission be extended," Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters in Jakarta.

The mandate is due to expire March 15, around the time of local elections in which the rebels will be allowed to participate. He said the mission would be extended by between "three and six months" to monitor the vote but that only 100 members of the team would be retained for that task.

Both sides have stuck to the deal so far. The rebels have disarmed and the military has withdrawn all non-Acehnese troops. Violence between the two sides has ended.

Several earlier attempts to end the fighting that broke out in 1976 and claimed 15,000 lives unraveled amid bitterness and mistrust.

Peace efforts picked up pace after a massive earthquake struck off Aceh's coast one year ago, causing a tsunami that killed at least 131,000 people in Aceh and left a half million others homeless.