Australia asks Indonesia for asylum assurances

CANBERRA, Feb 27 (Reuters) Australia plans to send a group of 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Indonesia, but only if Jakarta guarantees they will not be deported home while their refugee claims were assessed, the government said today.

The Australian navy intercepted the refugee boat from Indonesia with the 83 Sri Lankans and two Indonesians a week ago near Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, where they have been taken for interviews.

Australia's Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said Canberra was looking at sending the asylum seekers back to a refugee camp in Indonesia while their claims are assessed, adding the move would send a strong message to deter people smugglers.

''What we will be seeking from Indonesia ... is an assurance that these people will be processed in Indonesia under United Nations High Commission for Refugees guidelines,'' Andrews told reporters today. ''If that's not going to occur, then the Indonesian option is out,'' he said. Australia was also examining sending the asylum seekers to an immigration detention centre on Nauru, Andrews said.

Sri Lanka's top diplomat in Jakarta said if the asylum seekers were sent to Indonesia, he wanted Indonesia only be a transit point and he would help repatriate the 83 men back home, where they would not be subject to persecution.

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Saturday said a secret deal was being struck with Jakarta to send the asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka via Indonesia.

The latest boat is the first major arrival of asylum seekers in Australia since 43 Papuans landed in the remote north in an outrigger canoe in January 2006, prompting a diplomatic rift with Indonesia when they were granted protection visas.

Under Australia's ''Pacific Solution'' introduced in 2001, people intercepted attempting to reach Australia's mainland in refugee boats are sent to offshore immigration detention camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea while their claims are assessed.

Refugee advocates have criticised the ''Pacific Solution'' as denying asylum seekers their rights under international law, and said the latest arrivals should be allowed into Australia while their protection claims are assessed.

''The world is watching what Australia is doing on this issue,'' Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said in a statement.

To further deter illegal arrivals, Australia removed Christmas Island, a previously popular landing point for asylum seekers, and several outlying islands from being defined as Australian territory under immigration laws.

Prime Minister John Howard's tough stand against illegal immigration has been at the centre of his four consecutive election victories. He faces a tough election in the second half of 2007.

REUTERS BDP SSC1049