"As the ASEAN chair, Indonesia must be wise in responding to East Timor`s wish to gain full ASEAN membership," Guspiabri Sumowigeno said here Wednesday.
Guspiabri, director of political studies at the Center for Indonesian National Policy Studies (CINAPS), said Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao`s visit to Jakarta on Tuesday was to smooth his government`s efforts to join ASEAN this year.
"Yet, a decision to accept a new member state is always made by a consensus among all ASEAN member states," he said.
East Timor`s application for full membership status in ASEAN again emerged in talks betwwen President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Xanana Gusmao in Jakarta on Tuesday.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa had told Xanana that Indonesia and eight other ASEAN member states had agreed to back East Timor`s application, he said.
Referring to this statement,it meant that one member country had objections to East Timor`s wish to join the 10-member regional organization, Guspiabri Sumowigeno said.
He said the country, which had voiced the objection was the one, that did not want to see ASEAN`s integration into one community in 2015 delayed.
The integration process had so far burdened ASEAN to pay special attention to so called "CLMV" (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Viet Nam), the countries that joined ASEAN before the five founding members whose socio-economic developments were relatively left behind.
East Timor`s entrance into ASEAN could potentially disrupt the ASEAN`s integration process if there were no significantly economic improvements in the country with unproven political stability, he said.
"With East Timor`s entry , ASEAN`s image can be affected in the eyes of the world community," he said.
ASEAN had so far been regarded as a regional organization that had been quite successful in fostering its member states` economic development, he said.
Instead of forcing itself to join ASEAN, East Timor was suggested to develop an economic cooperation with Indonesia if it needed an access to ASEAN`s economic progress, he said.
The economic integrity model that could be adopted by East Timor was the one used by France and Monaco because despite the fact that Monaco was not an EU member country, it could still enjoy the EU`s economic benefits, he said.
"Indonesia and East Timor can look at an economic integrity scheme, which allows free flows of capital, people, goods, and services as well as use of Rupiah currency in East Timor," he said.
Besides Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Viet Nam, five other ASEAN member states are Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines.(*)
(R013/HAJM/R013)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
