ASEAN agrees in principle to admit East Timor as 11th member

Category : International Published on: November 15 2022

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has agreed in principle to admit East Timor as the group’s 11th member.
The half-island nation, officially called Timor Leste, will also be granted observer status at high-level ASEAN meetings.
The country would be the first new member of the regional grouping in more than two decades, since Cambodia was admitted in 1999.
The East Timorese voted for independence from a brutal occupation by neighboring Indonesia in a 1999 UN-supervised referendum, and the country was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2002, making it Asia’s youngest democracy.
The resource-rich country of 1.3 million people immediately started the process of accession to ASEAN, but only formally applied for membership in 2011.
The year 2022 has been declared as the ASEAN-India Friendship year, as ASEAN and India commemorate 30 years of partnership.