Asylum seekers fly to Portugal
Asylum seekers fly to Portugal
JAKARTA (JP): The 21 East Timorese youths who sought political asylum at the Japanese embassy on Tuesday left for Portugal yesterday afternoon after Lisbon said it was ready to accept them.
The young men, aged between 19 and 25, were transported from the embassy compound to the airport in a passenger bus owned by the Indonesian Red Cross, flanked by two cars carrying officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They then boarded commercial flight 832 of the Dutch carrier KLM, which took off at 7:40 p.m. The East Timorese are to be taken to Lisbon via Amsterdam.
Portugal said on Tuesday that it was willing to take in the asylum-seekers. "I cannot ignore a request from anybody who seeks refuge in our country. That is obvious," Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said, as quoted by Reuters.
In Osaka, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono reportedly discussed the incident with Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas, who is there for the APEC meeting.
"We've been consulting with the Indonesian government," a spokesman of the Japanese foreign ministry told reporters. He added that both Japan and Indonesia "clearly understand and respect their human rights".
Alatas had little to say about the incident.
"All I can say is that the pattern has become a bit boring," he said. He added that every time there is a major international conference "a few of our youngsters decide to scale the fence of an embassy."
He said the incident had been provoked by outside parties, since the youths' statements "were too-beautiful letters" which could not have been written by the young East Timorese.
"Nobody's taking this seriously anymore," he added.
Alatas said that Indonesia and Japan were quietly resolving the issue. "Indonesia's attitude has been clear from the beginning. If they want to leave the country, they can leave the country," he added.
The 21 East Timorese scaled the embassy's fence on Tuesday morning, in full view of the passing traffic. They were the third group to enter a foreign embassy in two months. Last year, just before the previous APEC meeting, 29 East Timorese entered the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and staged a lengthy sit-in. (01/emb)