Horta Calls On Australia To Pull Out Claims Over Timor Sea

News Portals: Sunday 7 May 2017 - 15:10 WIB Jose Ramos Horta urges Australia to withdraw unwarranted claims over the Timor Sea.

JAKARTA - Former Timor Leste president Jose Ramos Horta has told the Australian government to abandon the "unfounded" legal case to extend its border into the Timor Sea. According to him, the two countries are trying to negotiate a permanent maritime boundary over the profitable oil fields.

Speaking at an event organized by the Labor Party in Sydney, Horta cited Australia's argument that the borders should follow the continental shelf of "untenable laws" bordering on bad faith.

The two neighboring countries have been fighting for the ownership of the oil-rich Timor Gap since Timor-Leste's independence in 2002, including the revelation that Australia tapped the cabinet of the East Timorese government in 2004 to gain commercial advantage. Horta warned the Australian government not to risk the newly restored relationship by encouraging control of the lucrative Greater Sunrise oil field.

"We just asked for the right results," the 1996 Nobel laureate said as quoted by The Guardian , Sunday (5/7/2017).

"The law of the sea that binds this mandatory conciliation says that we have to negotiate in good faith We can get back to the starting point if the Australian negotiator returns to an unsustainable continental shelf argument," he said.

The Minister of Infrastructure Employment, Anthony Albanese, who invited Ramos-Horta to speak, encouraged productive negotiations between the two countries. "Good neighbors treat less powerful in a positive way, we have an obligation to East Timorese to treat them fairly," he said.

Ramos-Horta has repeatedly rejected Australia's long-standing position on the border, saying that the border should be taken equally between the two countries. "The law of the sea is very easy, a midline is drawn.This is the law of the 1950s and the present law," he said "Australia has never dismissed the claim, filed by those less diplomatic than me, that it is a mastery of resources, but this is close to our sentiments."

The disputed oil field is estimated to store oil and liquid resources worth USD 53 billion. The secret negotiations between the two countries began in January at a permanent arbitration tribunal in The Hague, whose results will be completed in September.

The negotiations began after Timor-Leste decided to stop an existing agreement that sets a 50-year temporary limit and would divide the 50-50 oil revenue. "There is consensus among scientists that East Timor and Australia are part of the same continental shelf, so if Australia survives with a continental shelf claim it must claim Timor Leste, or Timor Leste must claim all of Australia," Ramos-Horta said. Laughed at the audience.

"We will leave Tasmania alone, they are very good people," he added. Horta also criticized the Australian government's decision in 2002 to quietly withdraw from the UN maritime border dispute resolution contained in the UN convention on the law of the sea, thus escaping legally binding arbitration.

"We can be cynical about international law but the reality has prevented the war," he said. "If each country withdraws from international law, then we will be in a lawless world and only the strongest will prevail.It is remarkable that a solid old democracy like Australia will be the first to set a false example for countries Growing, "he sarcastically.

"You have strong doubts about your legal position, and with your brilliant international lawyer, knowing your position is not sustainable, so what are you doing? Interesting," he said.