hell can I get out of this? Minister for Foreign Affairs Given choice of cabinet position in the incoming Howard government elected in March 1996, Downer became Minister for Foreign Affairs, a position he held until 3 December 2007. He became the longest-serving Foreign Minister of Australia on 20 December 2004. One of Downer's earliest initiatives as Foreign Minister was to work with New Zealand to broker a peace agreement in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, which ended a long running civil conflict. In 1996, Downer took the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to the United Nations General Assembly where it was embraced by most members of the world body. Pakistan, India and North Korea were among those who failed to ratify the treaty and went ahead in developing nuclear weapons capability. In 1999, the U.S. Senate rejected ratification of the treaty. Downer stated However, subsequent policies of the Howard government, including export of uranium to India, and general support for the unilateralist approach of the Bush Administration were seen as undermining the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In 1999, Downer assisted the United Nations to hold a referendum in East Timor and in negotiating the entry of the INTERFET peace keeping force into East Timor. In 2003, ASIS installed listening devices in the Palace of Government in Dili, East Timor, and later Downer signed a controversial agreement with the government of East Timor for mining of gas and oil reserves in the Timor Gap. The agreement was criticised as unfair to East Timor and attracted a bipartisan letter of reproach from 50 members of the United States Congress. The reserves were closer to East Timor than Australia but claimed by Australia on the basis of a treaty made with General Suharto in 1989. As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Downer played a role in the diplomatic dispute known as the Tampa affair in 2001 in which Australia denied permission for the to dock at Christmas Island, having picked up a number of asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat. Downer also played a role in the subsequent negotiation of the "Pacific Solution" in which Australia held asylum seekers off-shore in foreign jurisdictions. In 2003, Downer was accused of not passing on intelligence reports he received before the 2002 Bali bombings. He countered that the warnings were not specific enough to warrant their further release