(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Australia plans to start sending asylum-seekers to Cambodia by the end of the year and will pay the Southeast Asian nation Aus$40m to accept them. Immigration Minister Scott Morrison, who was due to sign a controversial resettlement deal in Phnom Penh later yesterday, defended the plan and said it would help fulfil the government's vow that no boat people would be resettled in Australia.
"This is about providing genuine resettlement in a third country which is Cambodia, a signatory to the Refugee Convention," he said
"It enables us to fulfil on the policy which says no-one will be resettled in Australia."
Rights groups slammed the move, claiming Canberra was violating its international obligations and that Cambodia was not a safe third-country.
Morrison said that only those currently housed in offshore detention on the tiny Pacific outpost of Nauru would be considered initially.
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