THERE is firm evidence the PNG Solution is having the desired effect in deterring boatpeople from attempting to land on Australian soil, Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato said yesterday.
He said the solution was so successful, some Iranian asylum seekers in Indonesia were asking to be sent home.
Under the agreement with Australia, all boatpeople will be sent to a detention centre on Manus Island ahead of resettlement in PNG. None will be allowed into Australia.
“Fifty of them, from the brief that I got today (yesterday), have agreed to return to their country,” Pato, who is in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta attending a conference on asylum seekers, said.
“And this is being processed through the international migration organisation,” he said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
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| PNG Foreign Affairs Minister. Mr. Pato |
Pato defended PNG’s asylum seeker deal with Australia.
He said it was the only process that would work and dismissed criticisms coming from Australia that the deal was unravelling.
“It’s the same deal we did on that issue with the Howard government, with Julia Gillard and now with Kevin Rudd. So unless there’s a better solution, which I submit there isn’t, this solution is going to work.”
Ida Bagus Adnyana, Indonesia’s new head of immigration enforcement said: “The trends we have here is that there has been an increasing number of foreigners who want to voluntarily go back to their home countries, especially Iranians.”