East Timor President Ramos-Horta says to seek 2nd term

DILI Jan 31 (Reuters) - East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta said on Tuesday he will seek a second term after thousands of his supporters urged him to stay at the helm of Asia's poorest nation which is trying to unlock the wealth of its gas reserves.

Ramos-Horta, who survived an assassination attempt in 2008, shared the Nobel prize in 1996 with Timorese Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo for working for a peaceful solution to a long conflict with Indonesia that finally ended with independence for the country in 2002.

"My heart tells me if I stepped down and do not run again, people will see me as running away from my obligation. Therefore today I have decided I will contest the election for the presidency for the 2012-2017 period," he told supporters at a church in the capital, Dili.

More than 9,000 supporters signed a petition asking Ramos-Horta to stand in the March 17 election for the post of president, which is largely symbolic in a system in which the prime minister is the head of government.

Other candidates who have said they will contest the presidency include former army chief Taur Matan Ruak, the president of parliament, Fernando Lasama de Araujo, and Francisco Guterres of the Fretilin party that holds about 30 percent of the seats in parliament.

A separate election for prime minister is expected to take place around mid-year. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, a former guerilla leader, has not said whether he will run.

East Timor was a long-neglected Portuguese colony on the eastern half of a remote island in the southwest Pacific when Indonesia invaded in 1975 and annexed it. Ramos-Horta, like Gusmao, was a prominent member of the campaign against Indonesian rule.

One of the main problems for East Timor's leaders as they try to raise living standards is a dispute with Australia's Woodside Petroleum over the development of a big offshore gas field.

Woodside, which heads a consortium of firms developing the Greater Sunrise project gas field, wants to use a floating LNG plant, while East Timor wants the plant to be built onshore in order to create jobs.

It is not clear whether the election will affect the progress of the long-running dispute. Gas revenues could provide a major boost to East Timor, a country of over one million that is struggling to fight poverty and build infrastructure.

Woodside said in November it remained committed to finding an acceptable solution with East Timor's government.

(Reporting by Tito Belo; Writing by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Matthew Bigg and Robert Birsel)