BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Saturday that Indonesia's Aceh province needed full recovery from both the deadly tsunami of 2005 and decades of civil conflict, urging follow-through on elections and a peace plan. 

The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hit Aceh the hardest of any area, Clinton noted to reporters at the end of a three-country swing in his role as U.N. special envoy for the tsunami. 

The disaster left about 170,000 people dead or missing in Aceh on the tip of Sumatra, and destroyed massive amounts of infrastructure on Aceh's coast. 

But it also accelerated negotiations between the Indonesian government and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels aimed at ending a near-30-year conflict that had taken some 15,000 lives. 

An agreement was reached in August 2005 that led to the rebels laying down arms and Jakarta withdrawing troops, partly in exchange for government promises to let those who had been in the GAM participate in politics. 

"An astonishing thing happened here in the aftermath of the tsunami. Your long-simmering civil conflict was settled," Clinton said at an outdoor news conference as the sun set behind Aceh's rugged, green-clad mountains. 

In separate remarks he urged major players in the peace process to keep it on track through and beyond a Dec. 11 election in which a number of one-time GAM members are candidates. 

GAM's self-styled prime minister, Malik Mahmud, as well as Indonesian government officials, stood behind Clinton as he told reporters: 

"Going forward we have to look at the economic problems of those who were displaced by the (natural) tsunami and the economic problems of those who were displaced by the political tsunami" of the civil conflict. 

Earlier Clinton, in a yellow t-shirt and tan pants, visited one of Aceh's remaining camps for persons displaced by the tsunami, generating "oohs" and "aahs" from residents as he paused to shake hands and pose for pictures. 

Some also complained, however. A 56-year-old woman in a Muslim headscarf and long black and white dress said she told Clinton that "our condition is very difficult now" and camp residents needed permanent houses. 

The U.N. says that of a requirement in Aceh for 128,000 permanent homes, some 43,400 have been rebuilt or repaired. 

Clinton, whose two-year term as tsunami special envoy is about to end, said in his comments to reporters that much remained to be done, but that the progress already was impressive considering the devastation the disaster brought. 

Before coming to Aceh on Saturday afternoon, Clinton was in Thailand where he called for stepped up efforts to provide permanent homes to survivors. 

Clinton spent an hour in a fishing village, home to 200 Moken "sea gypsies" who survived the deadly waves that hit the Andaman Sea coastline of Thailand, killing nearly 6,000 people. 

"The slowest thing in this region is the housing," Clinton told reporters. 

"We have to keep working because on average about 30 percent of people have been put back in permanent houses -- 30 or 35 percent -- we've got to do better than that," he said. 

Clinton also visited India on his tour of tsunami-hit areas and was due to go to Papua New Guinea on Sunday for his work combating HIV/AIDS.