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Timor Leste rethinks its accession bid if ASEAN cannot handle Myanmar issue
Timor-Leste has been working on obtaining full membership of ASEAN since its initial application in 2011.
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Timor-Leste politician Xanana Gusmao gestures after voting during the general election in Dili, on May 21, 2023.
(AFP/VALENTINO DARIEL SOUSA )
T
imor-Leste Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão has said that the country would reconsider joining ASEAN if the bloc is unable to solve the conflict in Myanmar.
Xanana said that as a country that had adopted democracy, Timor-Leste could not accept military junta regimes anywhere and could not ignore human rights violations in Myanmar.
“Timor-Leste will not be joining the ASEAN if ASEAN cannot convince the military junta in Myanmar [to end the conflict],” Xanana said in a statement on Thursday.
ASEAN and Myamnar’s junta agreed on a peace initiative for Myanmar, the Five-Point Consensus, in April 2021, but its implementation has been sluggish due to a lack of commitment from the junta.
Xanana said that ASEAN’s inability to sit together to end the conflict in Myanmar would mean that “Timor-Leste cannot trust ASEAN. This is our government position”. His statement came shortly after his meeting with Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta.
Timor-Leste, which shares the island of Timor with Indonesia, has been working on obtaining full membership of ASEAN since it submitted an application in 2011, during Indonesia's ASEAN chairmanship.
Despite its geographic location in Southeast Asia, the small island nation had struggled to get a nod from ASEAN until late 2022, when the 10-country bloc agreed in principle to admit Timor-Leste as the group’s 11th member.
