Papua New Guinea's Inter-Government Relations Minister Job Pomat looked surprised when Home Minister Mardiyanto told him just seconds after they shook hands last week that Indonesia wanted the Skow-Wutung border post opened immediately.

Pomat was silent for a moment and took a deep breath before giving assurance his government would be ready to open the border post early next year.

The post, in the northern part of Papua, connects Jayapura in Indonesia and Vanimo in PNG.

"We really want to open the post as soon as possible. But the problem is that the border on your side is already very advanced while we have yet to fix the infrastructure on our side," he told his guest at his office here.

Indonesia has been pushing for the opening of the Skow-Wutung border as an international gateway since last year, saying it will boost commercial activity and improve the prosperity of people in the border areas.

"The border post will also reduce illegal crossings because everyone seeking to cross will be required to show their documents. This way, tension and security threats will be minimized as we can better control people's movements," Mardiyanto said.

Eddy Pratomo, director general for legal affairs and international treaties at the Foreign Ministry, said Indonesia would adopt a "soft management" approach, under which people would need only a letter issued by local authorities, instead of a passport, to cross the border.

Border crossing issues have become a headache for the Indonesian government, which fears some of those crossing could be members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), a separatist group campaigning for Papuan independence.

PNG has accused the Indonesian Military (TNI) of illegally entering its territory in pursuit of alleged OPM members.

A native Papuan, Martinus, 34, who lives near the border and frequently crosses to nearby PNG villages to sell basic commodities, said he hoped the opening of the border post would not affect his activities.

"This is the way we have lived for as long as I remember. In fact, I have family members who have been living in PNG for years now. I hope they will be allowed to come home," he said.

Martinus' relatives are among more than 25,000 Papuans who migrated to several provinces in PNG in the 1980s. Some of them have been accused by the TNI of being OPM members who conducted acts of rebellion against Indonesia from within PNG.

During a joint-border committee meeting with PNG last week, Indonesia voiced its demand for the neighboring country to allow its embassy to list Papuans wanting to return home.

"There are 708 Papuans who have expressed their intention to return home. We will facilitate it so they can go home immediately," said Kausar AS, director general of public affairs at Indonesia's Home Ministry.

A politics professor from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, urged Indonesia to build good relations with PNG to help deal with the OPM.

Problems along Indonesia's 760 kilometer border with PNG are among the many border issues the country must deal with, along with disputes with Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Timor Leste.

Indonesia has two border disputes pending with Singapore over the eastern and western parts of the city state.

"We will hold the latest round of negotiations with Singapore this month. We hope we can agree on the border lines immediately," Kausar said.

Indonesia and Malaysia still have scores of border disputes to settle, including the border through the Strait of Malacca and a spat over the Ambalat oil block in the Makassar Strait.

The Ambalat dispute began after the two countries had a showdown over the block in March 2007, following Malaysia's earlier claim to the area. Indonesia launched a major protest after Malaysia's state oil company Petronas awarded a concession to international oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell to work on blocks ND6 and ND7.

Indonesia has since 1980 claimed the block as its territory, based on the Djuanda Declaration of 1957, which was upheld by the United Nations in 1959 through its Convention on the Sea. In 1999, Indonesia granted an oil-drilling concession in one of the blocks to ENI of Italy and in another block to UNOCAL of the United States.

The Ambalat block is said to have oil reserves of 468 million barrels, with an estimated value of US$16 billion, as well as huge natural gas deposits worth around $57 billion.

The disputed area is close to the Sipadan-Ligitan islands, which were awarded to Malaysia by the International Court of Justice in 2003 after a decade-long dispute with Indonesia.

Although the two countries deployed their military might to the area, a clash was avoided when they agreed to resolve the dispute through negotiations. Representatives from the two countries have since met every two months to discuss the issue.

As for Timor Leste, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda has said Indonesia and Timor Leste had agreed on almost 97 percent of their border areas so far, but added they were still struggling to wrap up a comprehensive border treaty because of historical and traditional concerns.

"We have finished addressing issues over our land border with Timor Leste. Now, we're going to wrap up our sea border problems," Eddy Pratomo said.

Indonesia is still trying to resolve its northern border with the southern part of the Philippines.

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