-
Australian Customs Patrol - Source: Reuters -
Related
Indonesia's foreign ministry said it would check Australia's claims it has resolved a standoff over Sri Lankan asylum-seekers who entered Indonesian waters on board an Australian customs vessel.
Australian immigration officials told Indonesian counterparts that 56 Sri Lankans who remain aboard the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking had agreed to disembark on Wednesday, Australian media reported.
"Tomorrow we will go to the ship to check whether they really want to disembark or not," Sujatmiko, the Indonesian foreign ministry official in charge of the process, told Reuters.
Last week 22 men - out of a total of 78 ethnic Tamils on board the Oceanic Viking - agreed to disembark and stayed at an immigration detention centre on Indonesia's Bintan island after Canberra offered assurances those who possessed refugee cards would be resettled in Australia within four weeks.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's approval rating has been dented by the standoff, as the Sri Lankans refused to leave the Oceanic Viking customs vessel, moored in Indonesian waters.
The Sri Lankans were picked up at sea by the Oceanic Viking a month ago after they sent a distress call in Indonesia's search and rescue zone.
The standoff between Indonesia and Australia over how to handle the asylum-seekers has bought a new frostiness to Canberra and Jakarta relations, with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono postponing a trip to Australia, citing scheduling problems.
Rudd, keen to deflect talk of a rift with Jakarta as his government seeks Indonesia's help to block a surge of asylum-seekers, said Yudhoyono's delay was only temporary.
"We welcome his visit. The arrangements concerning it have been the subject of continuing discussion between the two sides," Rudd told parliament as conservative opponents said the government's Jakarta relations "could hardly be more damaged".
Since January, 39 boats with 1,890 people have arrived in Australian waters. Australia's immigration detention centre on remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean is full, with 1,151 people having refugee claims assessed.
Rudd has strongly defended his border protection policies and said the influx of boats is due to the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka. But critics say softer laws introduced by his centre-left government have encouraged the new wave of arrivals.
