NZ police face long haul in Timor as embattled PM resigns

New Zealand soldiers and police are likely to remain in riot-torn East Timor for months, Prime Minister Helen Clark warns.

She announced yesterday that up to 25 police would join the 167 Defence Force personnel in East Timor. They are expected to go in the next two weeks and remain for three months.

The deployment was outlined as East Timor's embattled Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, resigned.

Mr Alkatiri has been widely blamed for sparking a factional dispute within East Timor's Army, causing tensions which erupted last month into rioting, looting and murder and saw troops from Australia, Malaysia, Portugal and New Zealand rushed to the capital, Dili.

He has faced constant calls to resign ever since.

Last week, President Xanana Gusmao threatened to quit if Mr Alkatiri did not step down, and on Sunday Foreign Minister and Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta left the Government after the ruling Fretilin party endorsed the Prime Minister.

Mr Alkatiri said it was Mr Gusmao's resignation threat which had led him to bow to public and political pressure to leave office.

He said he was doing so "having deeply reflected on the present situation prevailing in the country ... assuming my own share of responsibility for the crisis ... [and] determined not to contribute to any deepening of the crisis".

Mr Ramos-Horta said he was a reluctant candidate to be prime minister: "I will do it if I am persuaded that I am the only person that everyone else agrees with."

Helen Clark said the crisis was a political one and had to be resolved by East Timor's leaders.

"We hope that this is a step towards that resolution ... While outside intervention as requested can restore law and order, in the end - as we've seen in the Solomons - all that good can be undone if there is a failure of leadership by the political class, and that's why we'll follow events within the Timor Government with great interest."

She added: "Our troops on the ground are now confronted with situations where police skills are needed to apprehend and move people through to a point where they can be prosecuted.

"We have had a police assessment team up in Timor looking at the task which would be undertaken and their judgment is that the time is now ripe for New Zealand police to be going to start to take over that function of patrolling and helping the Timor authorities."

The United Nations is considering what role it will play in the troubled country, but Helen Clark said New Zealand believed police needed to be sent now.

"New Zealand agrees that we cannot wait for the many months it may take for the United Nations to set up a mission."

She said she had been saddened by the resignation of Mr Ramos-Horta.

"We can only speculate around the reasons for his resignation, whether it was a way of forcing the issue."