For Timor Leste, Asean membership a lifelong dream

IT was as a budding diplomat in the 1970s that Jose Ramos-Horta (pic), a man who would go on to win the Nobel prize for his fight for Timor Leste’s independence, first raised the idea of his country joining South-East Asia’s economic and political bloc.

Half a century later, his vision seems set to be realised, with Asean announcing on Friday that it has agreed in principle to admit Timor Leste as the group’s 11th member.