Foreign Minister Penny Wong has used a visit to East Timor to publicly rebuke the country’s president, Jose Ramos-Horta, for using the media to pressure Australia over the terms of a potential gas project massif in the Timor Sea.
Politicians in East Timor have campaigned to convince Australian oil and gas company Woodside to agree to pipe gas from the Greater Sunrise field for processing in East Timor instead of the Darwin company’s preferred option.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong. Credit: Joe Armao
Ramos-Horta warned last month that East Timor would consider turning to China for investment if Woodside did not support prosecution on the ground in his country, a threat the Australian government found inflammatory.
“What I have said is that this has been blocked for many years,” Wong told a news conference in Dili when asked about the Greater Sunrise project.
“I’ve said to the president and others, ‘we’ve got to get this out, we’ve got to see how we can find a way out.’ What I’m going to say is that it’s best done respectfully and directly, not through the media.”
Wong, who previously traveled to Papua New Guinea, issued a tacit warning to East Timor about deepening ties with China, saying Australia’s development assistance and loans “are in the spirit of want East Timor to be more resilient.”
“And we know that economic resilience can be affected, can be limited, by unsustainable debt burdens or by lenders that have different goals,” he said.
The President of East Timor, José Ramos-Horta. Credit: AP
Ramos-Horta, who previously served as president twice between 2007 and 2012, will travel to Australia next week for the first time since assuming the presidency back in May.