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ustralian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith played down Thursday the possibility that ties between the two neighbors would be strained by the Australian Police's re-investigation of the deaths of five journalists in East Timor in 1975.

After a meeting on Wednesday with top Indonesian diplomats, who were seeking on explanation for the renewed interest in the 35-year-old case known as the Balibo Five that Jakarta considers closed, Smith told Australia's Radio National that Indonesia had been made aware that the issue might resurface when President Susilo Bambang Yudho yono met his counterpart in 2007 in Bali.

"This was one of the issues where both our countries agreed would potentially come up. That's the issues that we put in the same category, for example as, the Bali Nine and the question of capital punishment," said Smith in the interview, the transcript of which was made available to The Jakarta Post by the Australian Embassy.

"The strength now of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia is such that I'm absolutely confident that we can deal with this issue in a calm and sensible way," he said.

Teuku Faizasyah, a spokesman for the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, said Indonesia Ambassador to Australia Primo Alui Joelianto and director general of Asia-Pacific and African affairs T. M. Hamzah Thayeb had met with Smith in Australia on Wednesday and made it clear that Jakarta considered the case closed.

President Yudhoyono said Thursday in Jakarta that the new investigation should not continue and that Australia should focus on its future relationship with Indonesia.

"We hope our relations with Australia will not be impaired by a misguided mindset of looking back into past problems," he said.

Jakarta has refused to cooperate with Australia in the re-investigation. When asked whether Jakarta would issue visas for Australian officials working on this project, Faizasyah said: "We will ask them the purpose of their visit. The new investigation will irritate our relations, which are at all time high now."

Australian Federal Police began the investigation on Aug. 20 after a 2007 coronial inquiry found that Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters and New Zealander Gary Cunningham were killed on duty in the East Timorese village of Balibo to prevent news of the invasion from getting out.

Reuters reported that the new police probe would focus on Mohammad Yunus Yosfiah, who as an army special forces captain at the time was accused of ordering the killings. Yosifah later rose to become Minister of Information and still serves in parliament.

The 2007 coroner's inquest heard that Yosfiah ordered the shootings under instruction from senior officers. He has denied the accusation.

Smith did not specify why the investigation has been relaunched, but he pointed out at the current "mature relationship" between the countries means they could "deal with these issues maturely".

Indonesia-Australia ties turned sour in 1999 when Australia led peacekeeping troops into East Timor to halt violence by pro-Jakarta militias following the territory's vote for independence.

Ties were again strained in 2006 when Australia granted temporary asylum to 42 Papuans, and once more in 2007 when the Australian police requested the testimony of then Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso over the Balibo Five.