East Timor–Georgia relations

East Timor-Georgia relations

Timor-Leste	Georgia
Diplomatic mission
None	Embassy of Georgia, Jakarta

East Timor–Georgia relations are bilateral relations between Georgia and the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, first established in 2011. With both states separated by a large distance and with little economic power in each other's regions, ties between Tbilisi and Dili have remained a low priority for them. East Timor recognizes the territorial integrity of Georgia, while Georgia's embassy in Jakarta is accredited to East Timor.

Context

Georgian foreign policy

Georgia is a small state in the South Caucasus, bordered by Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, and the Black Sea. Becoming an independent republic following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, its foreign policy has by and large been focused on integration into Western structures, particularly the European Union (to which it filed for candidacy in 2022) and NATO. On the other hand, Georgia has had to face since the early 1990s separatist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two self-declared republics backed by the Russian Federation and recognized by most of the international community as Georgian territories under Russian occupation. To counter Moscow's lobbying on behalf of these two entities, Georgia has led a non-recognition policy aimed at pushing forward bilateral relations with countries it would traditionally ignore due to distance and lack of trade.

As a nation located on a wealthy trade route between China and Europe, Georgia has focused a lot of its diplomacy on securing its role as a commercial hub between East and West. In recent years, it secured free trade agreements with China, the European Union, while already maintaining a similar regime with CIS states and Turkey and negotiating free trade deals with Japan, India, and the United States. As part of that strategy, Georgia has sought to affiliate itself with several international organizations that maintain a large presence in Southeast Asia, including the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, the Pacific Alliance, and ASEAN. In 2020, it was reported that Georgia was seeking to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, of which East Timor is a signatory, but faced rebuttal from Malaysia.

Georgia has been in favor of cooperating with other small nations to give them more weight in international policy-making. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili floated the idea of a small nations' alliance to counterweight the influence of the United States, Russia, and the European Union in issues like climate change, human rights, and health care.

Foreign policy of East Timor

East Timor (also known as Timor-Leste) is a small nation in Southeast Asia, located on the island of Timor and bordering Indonesia to the east and the Timor Sea to the south. The first country to accede sovereignty in the 21st century, it became independent in 2002 after decades of struggle against Indonesian control, followed by a short-term UN administration. The country remains one of the world's smallest exporters and maintains very few relations with countries outside of its region. Since its independence, East Timor has been seeking integration into ASEAN, although its poor economic status has made other states reluctant to accept its membership.

On the international arena, East Timor has been closely allied with the Western world and strongly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

History

While East Timor became an independent country in 2002, Georgian authorities largely ignored the country until Tbilisi launched its non-recognition policy. As a result, the two states signed a treaty establishing diplomatic relations on 22 December 2011, signed by their respective representatives to the United Nations Alexandre Lomaia and Sofia Mesquita Borges. The treaty guaranteed a recognition of territorial integrity, mostly important for Georgia. The first meeting of high-ranking officials dates back to 26 September 2014, when Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze met her East Timorese counterpart José Luís Guterres on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

In April 2015, East Timor's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Sofia Borges was one of several international diplomats to visit Georgia in a tour organized by Tbilisi to shore up support for its sponsored resolution at the UNGA calling for the return of Georgian IDPs to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At the time, Ambassador Borges visited the village of Khurvaleti on the administrative boundary line of South Ossetia, which had recently been divided by barbed wires set up by Russian military forces. During her visit, she also met with President Giorgi Margvelashvili and toured the Justice Hall of Tbilisi, Georgia's centralized one-stop bureaucratic office.

In November 2016, East Timor's Foreign Minister Hernâni Coelho met with Georgia Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani while the two were taking part in a summit of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLC). According to Tbilisi, the meeting led to an informal agreement on the "expansion of economic and cultural relations", although cooperation in these two fields remain almost inexistant to this day. Coelho's successor Dionísio Babo Soares would meet with Georgian diplomat Shalva Tsiskarishvili in July 2018 in Cape Verde. In September 2022, Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili met with his East Timorese counterpart Adaljiza Magno in New York on the sidelines of the UNGA to talk mostly about Georgian-South Asian cooperation.

On 25 June 2018, Irakli Asashvili became the first Georgian ambassador to be accredited to East Timor after presenting his credentials to President Francisco Guterres in Dili.

Diplomatic representations

Georgia is represented in East Timor through its embassy in Indonesia. In June 2018, Ambassador Irakli Asashvili presented his letter of credence to President Guterres, becoming the first Georgian diplomat accredited to the nation. Ambassador Asashvili term ends in 2023 and no successor has been designated as of yet.

East Timor has no diplomatic representation or honorary consulate in Georgia, nor has it accredited any of its other diplomatic missions to include Georgia in their jurisdiction.

Multilateral format

Georgia and East Timor are both members of several international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and the Asian Development Bank. Georgia and East Timor are both founding members of the SDG 16+ Forum, a platform bringing together nations to implement the 16th Sustainable Development Goal ("Promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels"). The founding congress of SDG 16+ was held in Tbilisi in 2017 and in Dili in 2018. In May 2018, the Georgian and East Timorese missions to the UN co-sponsored a conference in New York on the role of civil society to implement the 16th SDG.

Georgia was granted associate observer status in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries at the 2014 Summit in Dili. Since then, most bilateral relations have been maintained through that multilateral framework, with most meetings held on the sidelines of CPLC meetings. Georgia, East Timor and the United Arab Emirates joined together the Joint Initiative on Service Domestic Regulation of the WTO in June 2022.

One of Georgia's main multilateral priorities is its sponsored resolution calling for the return of Georgian IDPs to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, introduced and passed each year since 2008. While East Timor has historically abstained from taking part in the vote, it backed the resolution for the first time in 2022.

Economic exchanges

Georgian-East Timorese economic relations have remained almost absent from the bilateral agenda, even though economic cooperation has been emphasized during most formats of bilateral meetings. No East Timorese exports have been reported in the Georgian market. In 2017, Georgia reported 1,600 USD-worth of exports to East Timor, almost all in foods.

References

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