East Timor's foreign minister says setting up a regional asylum seeker processing centre is not a simple bilateral matter for his country and Australia to decide.

The idea was first suggested by Australia, which detains thousands of asylum seekers at remote locations and places like the Villawood detention centre in Sydney, where a Fijian man died this Monday. Many centres are said to be overcrowded. And Zacarias da Costa has told Radio Australia that he expects the issue of a new regional centre to be raised by his Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd, at three-way talks, including Indonesia, in New York.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent

Speaker: Zacarias da Costa, East Timorese foreign minister

Da Costa: So far we haven't heard any detailed proposal from the government of Australia, so we remain open to look at this issue in due course.

Mottram: One of the issues that has been raised among people I've talked to about this in East Timor is that Australia might be able to buy East Timor's support, if you like, by offering something like an open option for East Timorese to come to Australia as seasonal workers. Do you see any prospect of that sort of offer working in your view?

Da Costa: Oh well, let me emphasise again that this is not a simple bilateral issue between Australia and Timor Leste, so I don't think we would like to put in the discussion other issues. But I can say that we remain open to listen to Australia's proposals.

Mottram: You say that it is not a simple bilateral issue and indeed recently, the UNHCR's assistant high commissioner, Erika Feller, wrote a newspaper article saying, indeed, that it is a matter for a regional solution, that it is a matter for there to be a sense of engagement and burden sharing. Do you get the feeling that this region, the Asia Pacific region is in a mood to do that?

Da Costa: The government of Timor Leste has already declared that the reason we are willing to discuss this issue is purely motivated by humanitarian reasons. Of course, in further discussion with other countries, with countries of the region, I believe that the common understanding is that this is a regional concern and should therefore be addressed in the regional context. It is understood that the most appropriate forum is the Bali process, a regional mechanism shared by Australia and Indonesia, and we have agreed in Hanoi that before the end of the year, both Indonesia and Australia will call for a ministerial meeting, where not only this issue but other issues relating to human trafficking, illegal migration and other transnational crimes can be discussed.

Mottram: Is the Bali process the best place for this discussion, though. After all, it has a very large membership of countries and is quite unwieldy?

Da Costa: Well, it's important, and I have seen Kevin Rudd also raising the issue, that we need to have regional support. Of course, we will also have the discussion among the three countries that are directly involved, Timor Leste, Australia and Indonesia, and this will happen in New York when we will have our next trilateral meeting host by Timor Leste.

Mottram: So, you intend to raise this issue at that meeting do you?

Da Costa: No, I will not raise the issue. I expect that Australia will raise the issue, but this is not the first time that we meet.