Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says East Timor should make moves to join the Commonwealth of Nations, the former British Commonwealth.
The former Portuguese colony is keen to join the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
Senator Carr said Commonwealth membership would be a cheaper and potentially more effective option.
"The Commonwealth is evolving into a community of democracies quite quickly," he told Radio Australia, saying it was 'very worthy' of consideration by East Timor's leaders.
Importantly, "they'd be joining an international forum where the votes and the views of a small island state count as much as the vote and the views of India or Nigeria or the United Kingdom.
"This would be the only forum in the world where small island states would have a consideration equal to those of very populous nations."
Senator Carr said there was a precedent - with Rwanda and Mozambique - for Commonwealth members not to have a British heritage.
He said Commonwealth membership gave access to an international forum at low cost, while the demands of ASEAN membership - with hundreds of regional meetings mandated each year - were "pretty considerable for a small nation".
There was no conflict with ASEAN membership, he said: Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia were Asean members, while also belonging to the Commonwealth.
