E Timor urges court to settle sea border row with Australia

East Timor yesterday urged an international court to help resolve a dispute with Australia over a maritime border which cuts through lucrative oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea.

Australia has said it would argue the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) based in The Hague -- the world's oldest international tribunal -- has no jurisdiction in the row.

But Dili said it "regretted" Canberra's stand, and urged the five-judge bench in an opening public session to find the court could take up the case and eventually rule.

"It is a national priority to secure our sovereign rights over the surrounding seas and the resources that lie therein, which hold the promise of a transformational development for our country," representative Elisabeth Exposto told the court.

East Timor, a tiny nation which gained independence from Indonesian occupation in 2002, is impoverished and depends heavily on oil and gas exports.

It has been demanding that Australia renegotiate the maritime border, and Exposto insisted Dili wanted to do so in "an amicable and collaborative way."

Lawyers told the PCA that most previous treaties on maritime boundaries were signed with former occupiers Indonesia, and no permanent maritime border currently existed between East Timor and Australia.

It appealed to the court to take up and finally settle the dispute under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Independence resistance hero Xanana Gusmao, a former prime minister, told the court that East Timor was just seeking what "is rightfully ours".