Timor Sea boundary deal pours oil on troubled waters
By Simon Roughneen in Jakarta
and Neil Connor in Beijing
AUSTRALIA and East Timor have signed a maritime boundary agreement, ending years of wrangling over billions of dollars of oil and gas reserves beneath the Timor Sea.
The landmark deal will give impoverished East Timor, which relies on oil and gas for 80-90 per cent of government income, at least 70 per cent of revenues from the Greater Sunrise field, which contains an estimated $65 billion (£46.8 billion) worth of resources.
The deal also appeared to be a move on Canberra’s behalf to demonstrate its commitment to maritime laws in the face of China’s growing might in the region.
Signed in New York yesterday, it marked the first successful conclusion of “conciliation” negotiations to settle maritime differences under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Julie Bishop, the Australian foreign minister, hailed it as an example of “international rules-based order in action”.
The border dispute has soured relations since 2002, when East Timor emerged as a fledgling nation independent of Indonesia and agreed, under pressure from Australia, to accept a temporary border agreement.
Australia was accused of bullying and of spying on East Timor during the negotiations.
“Throughout this long saga, there really isn’t much that the Australian government can be proud of. It lied and cheated to short-change East Timor at every opportunity,” said Tom Clarke, the spokesman for the Timor Sea Justice Campaign.
The allegations continued on the eve of the treaty signing, with a leaked letter from Xanana Gusmão, the chief negotiator and former prime minister, to the UN accusing Australia of “colluding” with energy companies to ensure oil and gas gets piped to the northern Australian city of Darwin, depriving the smaller nation of up to £14 billion in downstream financial benefits from processing the resources. Australia has denied any collusion.
The terms of the deal negotiated under the Conciliation Commission in The Hague through the Permanent Court of Arbitration are expected to be made public shortly, Australian diplomats said.
Australia was widely criticised in 2016 when it unsuccessfully rejected the court’s jurisdiction over East Timor’s border complaint, with many seeing the move as undermining its right to lecture China about its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Some observers also believe Australia was motivated to sign the deal by worries over increasing Chinese influence in East Timor.