Committee member Sutradara Ginting said the first meeting was scheduled for February 22.

The contentious draft law, the next stage of a peace process accelerated by the 2004 tsunami which killed some 165,000 Acehnese, sees Jakarta making its greatest concessions yet to preserve peace in the troubled province.

It is part of commitments made when the government signed a peace pact with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in august to end nearly three decades of conflict in the staunchly-Muslim province at the tip of Sumatra island.

The pact stipulates the autonomy law should be passed by March 31, but officials have said the date set signing the pact, GAM agreed to drop demands for independence in return for, among other concessions, the right to form local political parties, which are banned elsewhere in Indonesia to discourage separatism.

Critics have said the draft law, if passed, could spur demands from other regions for similar deals.

Opposition has been fierce among lawmakers from the nationalist party led by former President Megawati Sukarnoputri who say Jakarta may have gone too far in its compromises.

Extract from: Zeenews