Timor-Leste set to join Asean as full member by year's end, says Tok Mat

The Star

Speaking at the Concorde Club meeting on Monday (Feb 24), Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan said that Timor-Leste is on track to become a full member of Asean by the regional bloc's second summit in October or November this year.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/4v5vdy7h   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00Malaysia as the leader of ASEAN this year, we have decided during the meeting or retreat

00:27of the new ASEAN foreign ministers in Langkawi to speed up the process of including Timor-Leste as a permanent member in ASEAN.

00:40And we have agreed and established a special unit at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta to help Timor-Leste

00:51to speed up the process of including Timor-Leste as a permanent member in ASEAN.

00:58Timor-Leste has a lot of instruments that need to be approved by Timor-Leste.

01:05There are 88 instruments, most of which are from the economic sector.

01:14Of those 88, 69 are from the economic sector.

01:20So, we have asked, I have asked, for the economic sector, the economic authorities in Jakarta

01:27to review whether the instruments that need to be approved are still needed or still in use or not.

01:41It turns out that many of the instruments that need to be approved by Timor-Leste 69 are no longer relevant.

01:52So, we are reviewing this so that we just remove those instruments as not needed by Timor-Leste.

02:03So, God willing, and even though we have a basic agreement,

02:08even if Timor-Leste cannot approve all the instruments in the near future,

02:16we want to give them what is called approval within 30% first

02:23and give them time after they become ASEAN permanent members,

02:28give them 3-4 years or 5 years to slowly, step by step,

02:35approve and approve the instruments that need to be approved.

02:40So, this is what we are doing.

02:42And if we can do this, we can see that there is a high possibility that Timor-Leste

02:50can be made or can be included as ASEAN permanent members

02:55during the second summit in November or October this year.

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