Timor-Leste’s airport reopened today after the United Nations police force helped end fighting between gangs and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the small South-East Asian nation that was shaken earlier this year by violence attributed to differences between eastern and western regions.

Despite fears of violence after the release this week of a United Nations report into recent strife in Timor-Leste, the response so far has been “overwhelmingly positive” and calm in the tiny nation where deadly conflict attributed to differences between eastern and western regions erupted in April, the top UN official in the country said today.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today appointed a team of high-level experts to verify next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Timor-Leste, part of the world body’s continuing assistance to the tiny South East Asian nation that it shepherded to independence in 2002.

The United Nations envoy in Timor-Leste today warmly welcomed a statement by Timorese leaders calling on the population to accept the findings of an upcoming UN report into this year’s deadly violence in the tiny South-East Asian nation, which killed around 40 people and forced more than 150,000 others to flee their homes.