Jakarta – Senior officials from Indonesia, Timor Leste and Australia held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 68th United Nations General Assembly, in a bid to enhance connectivity, a statement released by Indonesian Foreign Affairs ministry said here on Thursday.

Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa said that trilateral relations between Indonesia, Timor Leste and Australia has been constantly improving, marked with deepening cooperation among those three countries in various sectors.

He added that the relations has stepped into maturity as the discussions have developed into concrete initiative and cooperation.

"This time, the meeting discussed efforts to enhance regional connectivity that would eventually strengthen social and economic ties," the minister was quoted by the statement as saying on the sidelines of the meeting on Wednesday in New York.

He said that the three countries apparently have common interests in several issues that need joint efforts to address them. Among the issues are environment, natural disasters and connectivity.

Natalegawa said that discussions among those attended the trilateral meeting led to the efforts to improve the connectivity between the three countries by increasing the flight routes and infrastructure development in the region.

"We discussed work program, or the action plans to increase our cooperation (to address the connectivity improvement)," the minister said. He added that direct flights from Australia's Darwin to Denpasar in Indonesia's Bali and from Darwin to Timor Leste's capital of Dili have been running in the last one year.

The three countries intended to expand direct flights between Darwin, Dili and Kupang, the capital city of Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province. The flight route expansion was considered important to boost up tourism and economy dynamism among those cities.

To do so, the three countries agreed to push forward wider contribution of private sector in developing the connectivity and intensifying tourism promotion in Indonesia's eastern region, Timor Leste, Western and Eastern Australia, the minister said.

The trilateral meeting between Indonesia, Timor Leste and Australia has been conducted annually since 2002 on the sidelines of UN general assembly meeting.