The government in Jakarta has been coming under mounting pressure to allow the deployment of a foreign force in East Timor since violence intensified following last week's independence referendum. The United States said Indonesia should agree to such a force if it was unwilling, or unable, to end the trouble itself.
Several countries have troops on stand-by.
The Indonesian Government has imposed martial law, but militia mobs have continued to rampage through the capital Dili and outlying towns. The unrest spread onto the streets of Jakarta, where earlier on Tuesday the government released the rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, the man most likely to lead the newly independent East Timor. But UN Security Council President Arnold Peter van Walsum told the BBC the UN would not give the green light for intervention without Indonesia's consent. There has been a lot of looting and destruction going on. Aitarak militiamen have been roaming around the street in Unamet vehicles.