Dili, June 17, 2025 (Média Democracia) – The government held an interministerial meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kayrala Xanana Gusmão and fully participated by government members to discuss Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN scheduled for October 2025. The meeting took place in the MNEK conference room, Praias dos Coqueiros, Dili, on Monday.
In an interview, Deputy Minister for ASEAN Affairs Milena Rangel stated that today’s meeting was the first interministerial meeting following the ASEAN Presidential Declaration in May, after the delegation returned from Malaysia. The day after their return, the Prime Minister immediately convened a Council of Ministers meeting, which decided to establish a working group composed of ministerial lines to respond to the ASEAN Presidential Declaration, particularly regarding Timor-Leste’s full membership.
“There is a paragraph which discusses ASEAN and Timor-Leste accelerating negotiations on economic agreements. Therefore, today’s meeting aimed to carefully review our calendar from now until October in order to finalize the ongoing sessions and thus allow us to participate in the admission ceremony as a new ASEAN member,” explained Deputy Minister Milena Rangel.
She emphasized that today’s meeting was very important because it was led by the Prime Minister, following the agenda previously agreed upon in the Council of Ministers. She further explained that such meetings will be held weekly to ensure each segment of the process is addressed. After two or three weeks, there will be follow-up meetings where each ministry must report their progress.
“These meetings will continue like this until the end of September, concluding with the final meeting in September. We want to ensure that all preparations are complete, which depends on communication between ministries and ASEAN members, as we are striving to finalize some pending tasks before the summit in Kuala Lumpur where member states will officially welcome Timor-Leste as a full ASEAN member,” stated the Deputy Minister for ASEAN Affairs.
She also conveyed that a crucial point raised today was ASEAN’s request for Timor-Leste to accelerate key agreements, particularly concerning trade acceleration and strengthening ministerial work and the reserve list as stipulated in that paragraph. ASEAN requests that Timor-Leste expedite these processes to meet ASEAN’s standards, which are of high importance, and therefore Timor-Leste must comply with these standards.
She reaffirmed that ASEAN’s report is currently based on information related to infrastructure plans, recognizing Timor-Leste’s positive progress thus far. However, before joining ASEAN, thorough preparations must still be made. Therefore, the government has a plan to intensify efforts and speed up pending tasks, with confidence that all ministries will work even harder before Timor-Leste’s full accession to ASEAN in October 2025.
In summary, this interministerial meeting focused on Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN as a permanent member, monitoring work progress among ministries, and enhancing communication with ASEAN. The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister along with his team, parliament members, and government members currently led by Prime Minister Kayrala Xanana Gusmão.
Reporter: Domingas
Photo: Domingas