Related Event: Asian Tsunami Disaster

A senior Indonesian official says the government and Aceh rebels have reached a peace deal to end a 29-year insurgency in the tsunami-devastated province.

Communications Minister Sofyan Djalil, one of the lead negotiators at peace talks in Finland, said a draft peace deal submitted by the rebel Free Aceh Movement was approved Saturday by the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The minister noted the peace deal would ease the delivery of international reconstruction aid to the province of 4.1 million inhabitants. It was severely damaged by the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed at least 130,000 people.

He added the accord would be signed in mid-August at a formal ceremony in Helsinki.

The agreement reportedly will allow the separatists to field individual candidates in local elections next April for town mayors.

The government also has undertaken to change a law banning local political parties within 18 months.

The draft agreement also provides for the withdrawal of most of the 50,000 Indonesian troops and paramilitary police in the province. It also calls for the disarmament of the 5,000-strong guerrilla force.

President Yudhoyono said rebels would be given three months to disarm.

Experts say that a peace formula for Aceh will help defuse separatist tensions that have threatened to tear Indonesia apart since the ouster of former ruler Suharto in 1998 and East Timor's secession a year later.

The peace process was restarted immediately after the Dec. 26 disaster, when both the Indonesian administration and the Aceh rebels came under intense international pressure to end the long-running war that has killed 15,000 people.

The two sides have met five times since then in Helsinki. The current, final round of talks opened on Tuesday.

(Source: AP)