Vaudine England, Jakarta – In a surprise move, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid yesterday proposed a meeting with Australian Prime Minister John Howard and East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao to help repair strained relationships.
Steps toward the three-party meeting also illustrate the potential significance of a location – such as East Timor – on the East Asian geopolitical map.
Mr Wahid's proposal comes after he indefinitely postponed a planned visit to Australia, which Australian commentators saw as a calculated snub prompted by widespread anger at Canberra's role in leading international troops into East Timor last year.
"I would like the three countries to co-operate for our mutual benefit and interests," Mr Wahid said yesterday after holding talks with Mr Gusmao in Jakarta.
Mr Wahid wants to meet his two counterparts in West Timor, East Timor or Australia on his way home from Canberra, but did not say when that visit would be.
Alleged spying by Australian soldiers and Indonesian claims – denied by Australia – about so-called "spy" flights into Indonesian airspace by Australian planes, have helped further delay the trip.
But Mr Gusmao has maintained good relations both with Australia and Indonesia, and may well be an agent of gradual rapprochement between his two largest neighbours.
Mr Gusmao supports Mr Wahid's plan for a summit meeting of the three leaders and would urge Mr Howard to take part. Mr Gusmao, who has often praised Australian intervention in East Timor, is due to hold talks with Mr Howard in Canberra next week.
Mr Howard, meanwhile, predicted this week that relations with Indonesia might never be fully repaired. In turn, Mr Wahid has criticised Australian policy on Jakarta as "childish".
In the longer term, the desire of East Timor's leadership to play an active diplomatic role in safeguarding its future independence brings into focus the likely competing demands for influence on the territory. One school of thought among diplomats and analysts on the issue of security holds that East Timor is strategically insignificant, and the only priority is for Indonesia – a major regional power – to feel comfortable with an independent East Timor in its waters.
"We have neither the resources nor the ambition to expand our strategic reach," Australian Ambassador to Indonesia John McCarthy said at the height of Indonesian anger over Australia's leadership of international intervention in East Timor.
Others say East Timor is the hinge on an Asian axis, between the interests and territorial ambitions of China to the north and those of Australia, an ally of the United States, in the south.
East Timor's independence leaders, Mr Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta, have often said they aim to be independent and unambitious in the diplomatic arena. They have been in touch with the South Pacific Forum and the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) about future membership.
At the same time, they have told the Chinese leadership they want to establish diplomatic ties with China. "East Timor places great importance on China's important role in international and regional affairs, and hopes to establish and develop normal relations with China as soon as possible," Mr Gusmao said in January.