Ekip
August 31, 2015•Update: August 31, 2015
MELBOURNE
Australia has been forced onto the back foot following a Cambodian government official's announcement that the southeast Asian country has no intention of taking in any more of its unwanted refugees.
Immigration minister Peter Dutton told reporters Monday that he still believed a $55m refugee resettlement deal between the two countries to resettle people was “ongoing”.
“Well, the government has not had that advice [that no more refugees would be resettled],” he said. “Obviously people at the low level will make comment from time to time but we have a good engagement with my counterpart, with counterparts at an official level and our discussions are ongoing.”
The Cambodia Daily on Saturday quoted Cambodian Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak as saying that there are no plans to "import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia."
"[T]he less we receive the better," he added.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also denied Monday that the deal was collapsing.
"That is not correct. You're relying on an alleged statement of one official," she told reporters.
Once sold as an ambitious plan to offer refugees held at the Australian offshore detention facility of Nauru a fresh start at life in Cambodia, a widely criticized multi-million-dollar resettlement deal struck just under a year ago between Cambodia and Australia has essentially faltered.
The deal, which was forged in a champagne ceremony in Phnom Penh in September last year, was originally worth AU$40 million ($32 million), but Australia tacked on an additional $15 million in administrative and logistical costs associated with the resettlement of the first and only batch of refugees to agree to the transfer.
Those four, three Iranians and one Rohingya man, have been living in a villa in the southern part of Phnom Penh since their June arrival.
On Monday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot insisted that everything was going smoothly, telling reporters that under the arrangement Cambodia had agreed to take "a number" of refugees from Nauru.
"It's an agreement that indicates Cambodia's readiness to be a good international citizen," he told reporters in Sydney.
Contacted by Anadolu Agency on Saturday, Sopheak reiterated his position that there are "no plans" for any refugees to come to Cambodia, and that there are also "no plans" for talks to be held between the Cambodian and Australian governments with regard to future transfers.
He said he did not know if any more refugees would ever arrive as part of the deal.
Conditions on Nauru have been described as appalling by rights advocates and in recent days, shocking reports of rapes and sexual assaults on the remote, South Pacific island nation have appeared across Australian media.
Australian immigration rules have been tightened under the present government, with a zero tolerance policy for refugees and asylum seekers who arrive to the country by boat.
Those on Nauru have been told that they will never be allowed to enter Australia, leaving them faced with the choice of either staying on Nauru or volunteering for the transfer to Cambodia.
The Daily quoted Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul as saying that efforts on Nauru to convince refugees to come to Cambodia had "essentially stopped."
