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CANBERRA - A group of 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, now undergoing health and identity checks on Christmas Island, will not be sent anywhere there is risk of persecution, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews says.
Options for dealing with the group include returning them to Indonesia or processing them on either Nauru or Christmas Island.
But Mr Andrews said they would not be returned to Indonesia without assurance that they would be processed under the guidelines of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) and resettled according to those guidelines.
"If we cannot have that sort of assurance in relation to any other country we are dealing with, then that rules that as an option out," he told ABC radio.
"We will act in accordance with our international obligations in that regard but we will also do it in a way which will ensure as far as possible, we deter people from trying to smuggle others around the world."
The 83 Sri Lankan and two Indonesian men were intercepted by the Australian navy in international waters last week and taken to Christmas Island, where they have been undergoing preliminary checks.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to Jakarta said yesterday Indonesian authorities had indicated they simply wanted to act as a transit point for sending the boat people back to Sri Lanka.
Mr Andrews said there had been no talks between Australia and Sri Lanka, but discussions with Indonesia were continuing.
"Our position has been absolutely clear and will remain clear. That is that if they return to Indonesia -- and this was only one of the options we have been exploring -- then they must be under the UN High Commissioner for Refugees," he said.
Mr Andrews rejected suggestions that the group should be fully processed on Christmas Island without further consideration of other options.
"The message then is that these people get to a part of Australia, namely Christmas Island, which is the way in which we believe some of the people smugglers have been selling their wares so to speak to potential customers," he said.
"We want to say to people this is a dangerous activity. We have had a boat that was sunk in the past with loss of life. We had people on an old fishing boat in this case which ended being unseaworthy.
"You would only need pretty rough weather in the Indian ocean to have another tragedy on our hands and it is not something to be encouraged."
- AAP
