Australia returns boatpeople to RI

CANBERRA: The Australian navy has escorted a boatload of suspected Kurdish asylum seekers who made it as far as a northern Australian island back to Indonesia, where they are being held by local police, the Australian government said on Sunday.

Following talks with Jakarta officials, Australian immigration minister Amanda Vanstone said the boat was escorted to the edge of Indonesian waters before making its own way to the Indonesian island of Yamdena.

"They are safe, they are in Indonesia, the IOM (International Organization for Migration) is there," Vanstone said on television as quoted by Agence France-Presse.

"They are in the care of the local police," she said.

However, Indonesian National Police director for transnational crimes, Brig. Gen. Aryanto Sutadi, told The Jakarta Post that the Indonesian police had not received any information on the asylum seekers.

"We have not been informed about this and these asylum seekers have not been delivered to us and we are still trying to locate them," he said on Sunday.

He also said that no country should waive its responsibility to deal with asylum seekers, placing the burden on other countries. -- Agencies