NZ open to request from East Timor

New Zealand would treat sympathetically any request from the United Nations to send troops to help in East Timor, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said yesterday.

Violence has erupted in the capital Dili after soldiers were sacked from the military. Mr Peters said during the Australia New Zealand leadership forum in Auckland yesterday that the situation in East Timor was fluid and if New Zealand was to get involved it would be as part of a UN operation.