A senior US official said he sees "many promising signs" for the future nation of East Timor, which held its first democratic elections Thursday.
James Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, said the United States was committed to the democratic process in East Timor.
"I think we will have to wait and see what kind of government emerges here, to react to it," Kelly told a press conference.
"There are many promising signs now, I might add."
Kelly said he and a US observer delegation visited five or six crowded polling stations.
"There was a kind of determination but there also was no tension. It was just obvious people were not afraid of something bad that was going to happen to them," he said.
During his talks with East Timorese officials, Kelly said he touched on the need for tribunals into past human rights violations in the former Indonesian province.
East Timorese voted exactly two years ago for independence, triggering a bloody backlash from pro-Jakarta militias.
"Bygones really cannot be bygones in the case of some of the crimes that were committed," he said.
Kelly said he also planned to talk to senior Indonesian officials about the September 2000 murder of three UN refugee agency workers in the West Timor border town of Atambua -- DILI, East Timor (AFP)
