Australia is considering talks on a new security treaty with Indonesia to replace a pact abandoned during the bloody fallout from East Timor's independence ballot in 1999, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Sunday.

The previous treaty, which Downer described as "a fairly meaningless document" was abandoned along with joint military training exercises after Australia led United Nations peacekeepers into East Timor to end a rampage by Indonesian military-sponsored militias, angered by the former Indonesian province's vote for independence.

Australia was weighing a new treaty that would build on a memorandum of understanding on counter-terrorism signed by Prime Minister John Howard and former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2002, in response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, Downer said.

"If you were to negotiate a new treaty with Indonesia, I think you'd want to incorporate those counter-terrorism provisions currently in the MOU," he told the Nine Network. "We haven't made any commitment yet to negotiating such a treaty, but it's something that we are giving consideration to." Howard will attend the inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia's newly elected president, in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Downer said it was unlikely Howard and Yudhoyono would discuss in detail a new security treaty, or the government's plan to base Australian counter-terrorism police in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Yudhoyono said during a visit to Australia last year the two countries should revive the previous treaty in the interests of counter-terrorism.

Downer said he thought the Australian government would have a good relationship with Yudhoyono during his presidency. "He's committed to taking a strong stand against terrorism, against [Southeast Asian terrorist group] Jemaah Islamiyah," Downer said. "He's committed to having a very productive, a very constructive relationship with Australia."