All Australian troops are expected to be withdrawn from East Timor within three years.
President Jose Ramos Horta says the situation in East Timor is "absolutely peaceful" and the Australian defence contingent there should be back home by early 2013.
Australia has 400 personnel stationed in the fledgling nation as part of the International Stabilisation Force which is helping the United Nations maintain stability.
Dr Ramos Horta said troop levels should stay the same until after East Timor's elections, due in April and June 2012.
"I believe that this number should stay more or less stable `til final withdrawal, which we might estimate to be early 2013," he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
Earlier, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would be willing to keep the troops in Timor until then.
The mandate for the international force was due for consideration in February 2012, he said.
"Should the government of Timor-Leste require further assistance for the period of that year, we'd respond to such a request positively," Mr Rudd told reporters after a meeting with the president.
Dr Ramos Horta praised Australian troops as "superb" for their professionalism and work with the people of East Timor.
He said most now were doing community and civil work.
Dr Ramos Horta offered his condolences to the families of Australian soldiers who had died recently in Afghanistan.
"Some of them served in Timor-Leste in the past," he told reporters.
"You would not find better people than that, so I feel, also, personally, the loss of the Australian soldiers in Afghanistan."
Five Australian soldiers have died in Afghanistan in recent weeks.
Subject: Diggers to exit East Timor by early 2013 
June 23rd 2010, 10:46 am
