Timor Leste to be granted full Asean membership in Oct 2025 PM Anwar

KUALA LUMPUR – Timor-Leste will become Asean’s 11th member state, with full membership to be granted at the next regional meeting in Kuala Lumpur later in 2025.

Announcing this at a press conference on May 27, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose country is the Asean chair in 2025, said Timor-Leste will become a full member of the regional grouping at the upcoming Asean meeting scheduled for October.

“The decision is they will be accepted as full member in the next October session,” said Datuk Seri Anwar, adding that this was still subject to Timor-Leste fulfilling “one or two” more conditions under the economic pillar.

He said Asean has finally achieved a real consensus on Timor-Leste after so many rounds of negotiations.

Timor-Leste was officially recognised by the UN in 2002, making it Asia’s youngest democracy. The resource-rich country of 1.5 million people immediately started the process of accession to Asean, but formally applied for membership only in 2011.

During the Asean Summit in Cambodia in 2022, Timor-Leste was admitted in principle as the 11th member of Asean and granted observer status.

Timor-Leste occupies the eastern part of the island of Timor, at the far eastern tip of the Indonesian archipelago. The island’s western region belongs to Indonesia.

Before it became independent of Indonesia on May 20, 2002, Timor-Leste was one of its provinces, known as East Timor.

At present, the 10 member states of Asean are Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines.

On May 26, a day before the official announcement, Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta expressed appreciation that the country’s application had been accepted.

“(In) 2011, when as president, I signed the formal letter of intention to join Asean, not too many in Timor-Leste understood and agreed. Not too many in Asean agreed,”