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AFP
SYDNEY — Australia Tuesday pledged to plough on with plans for a regional asylum-seeker centre despite a rejection by the parliament of East Timor, its most likely location.
Officials said Monday's unanimous vote, involving 34 of the impoverished country's 66 parliamentarians, was not a government motion and insisted Timor's prime minister and president remained in talks.
"We've confirmed that the prime minister and president remain engaged in discussions about the possibility of the regional asylum centre being based in East Timor," Small Business Minister Craig Emerson told Sky News.
"We're pressing on with that regional solution. We believe a regional processing solution involving regional cooperation makes a lot of sense."
Canberra officials are due in tiny East Timor this week to discuss the project, which is a major plank of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's bid to win coming elections.
Gillard strongly suggested East Timor would process the asylum-seekers arriving off northern Australian when she announced the plan last week, but later backtracked and said the fledgling country was only one "possibility".
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was also set to hold talks this week in Indonesia, a major transit point for people-smugglers ferrying poor Asian migrants to wealthy Australia.
East Timor, a mainly Catholic country of just over a million people, is still dependent on foreign aid more than 10 years after its bloody vote to split from Indonesia.
Australia is a major donor of aid and has about 400 troops in East Timor as the leader of an international force providing security for the country.
Australia's ruling Labor Party and opposition have both unveiled tough policies on asylum-seekers, with Greens party chief Bob Brown saying the debate reminded him of anti-immigration firebrand Pauline Hanson.
Copyright © 2010 AFP
.
AFP
SYDNEY — Australia Tuesday pledged to plough on with plans for a regional asylum-seeker centre despite a rejection by the parliament of East Timor, its most likely location.
Officials said Monday's unanimous vote, involving 34 of the impoverished country's 66 parliamentarians, was not a government motion and insisted Timor's prime minister and president remained in talks.
"We've confirmed that the prime minister and president remain engaged in discussions about the possibility of the regional asylum centre being based in East Timor," Small Business Minister Craig Emerson told Sky News.
"We're pressing on with that regional solution. We believe a regional processing solution involving regional cooperation makes a lot of sense."
Canberra officials are due in tiny East Timor this week to discuss the project, which is a major plank of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's bid to win coming elections.
Gillard strongly suggested East Timor would process the asylum-seekers arriving off northern Australian when she announced the plan last week, but later backtracked and said the fledgling country was only one "possibility".
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was also set to hold talks this week in Indonesia, a major transit point for people-smugglers ferrying poor Asian migrants to wealthy Australia.
East Timor, a mainly Catholic country of just over a million people, is still dependent on foreign aid more than 10 years after its bloody vote to split from Indonesia.
Australia is a major donor of aid and has about 400 troops in East Timor as the leader of an international force providing security for the country.
Australia's ruling Labor Party and opposition have both unveiled tough policies on asylum-seekers, with Greens party chief Bob Brown saying the debate reminded him of anti-immigration firebrand Pauline Hanson.
Copyright © 2010 AFP
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