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RI to monitor impact of new Australian asylum seeker policy
Following the recent announcement by the Australian government to lower the yearly quota of refugees applying from Indonesia, the Foreign Ministry stated that the government will monitor the situation and confer a response based on the implications of the new Australian policy
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ollowing the recent announcement by the Australian government to lower the yearly quota of refugees applying from Indonesia, the Foreign Ministry stated that the government will monitor the situation and confer a response based on the implications of the new Australian policy.
'The Indonesian government has been made aware of Australia's new policy towards refugees. It is obviously a policy of the Australian government and implemented by the Australian government. Indonesia will monitor closely the implication of the implementation of this new policy and should it have adverse implication to the interests of Indonesia, then necessary measures will be taken in due course to protect our interests," Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said on Wednesday.
Tene added that Indonesia's stance towards handling the asylum seeker problem is to conduct comprehensive talks with the origin, transit and the destination countries in order to ensure better detection, prevention and protection of the refugees, as per discussed in the Jakarta Declaration in 2013.
'While Indonesia is not a party of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, it has in general complied with the basic principles of the convention [...] In this connection, we do hope that countries in the region will continue to uphold their shared responsibility in addressing this issue of asylum seekers," he added.
Tene, however, cannot confirm that the asylum seeker agenda was part of President Joko Widodo's bilateral discussions with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
The new Australian policy on asylum seekers, which was announced on Nov. 18, states that Australia will not resettle any asylum seekers who made their applications after July 1 2014, through the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) office in Jakarta.
Australia also has limited the quota of refugees available in Indonesia to 450 places a year, from the previous 600 places.
Over 10,000 asylum seekers fleeing instability in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, are currently stranded in Indonesia. The Indonesian government had been in consultation with the UNHCR regarding the new policy. (ebf)(+++)
