Rather than contemplating an additional joint zone mechanism or, alterna-tively, an extension to the JPDA established under the TST, Australia instead
pushed for a deal whereby East Timor would give up or at least shelve its
claims to areas beyond the eastern and western limits of the JPDA, in
exchange for which Australia would provide financial “compensation.”
52
Australia’s
aim in this context appears to have been to preserve its position that it holds
exclusive sovereign rights over those seabed areas south of the 1972 Australia-Indonesia continental shelf delimitation line, but north of the median linebetween opposite coasts, whilst simultaneously offering a financial package tempting enough to secure East Timor’s consent. In this way any troublesome questions concerning the validity of the 1972 seabed treaty could be forestalled and thus any related complications in Australian-Indonesian relations avoided.