Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (L) shakes hands with Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sept. 9, 2015. Cambodia is ready to take in more Australia's refugees after the first group of four refugees arrived in the country in June, a Cambodian spokesman said on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Sovannara)
PHNOM PENH, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia is ready to take in more Australia's refugees after the first group of four refugees arrived in the country in June, a Cambodian spokesman said on Wednesday.
Sry Thamarong, a spokesman for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, made the statement after a meeting between Hun Sen and visiting Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton at the Peace Palace in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
"Both Prime Minister Hun Sen and the guest (Peter Dutton) wanted to see more refugees coming to Cambodia based on a voluntary principle--each group can be four or five people," he told reporters after the talks. "We are ready to take in voluntary refugees."
Earlier in the day, Dutton held talks with Cambodian deputy prime minister and interior minister Sar Kheng. During the discussion, Sar Kheng promised to send officials to an offshore detention camp in the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru to introduce the refugees about the resettlement in Cambodia.
According to the spokesman, the two countries vowed to honor the refugee resettlement agreement that they signed in September last year. Under the multi-million-U.S. dollar deal, Australia will send refugees, who intend to seek asylum in Australia and are being held in an offshore detention camp in Nauru, to resettle in Cambodia.
On June 4, the first group of four Australia's refugees - a Myanmar's Rohingyan minority man and three Iranians - agreed to resettle in Cambodia. Since then, they have been temporarily housed in a villa on the southern outskirts of Phnom Penh under the care of the International Organization for Migration.
However, the Rohingyan minority man had asked to be sent back to his birth country Myanmar because he wanted to reunite with his family, Sry Thamarong said, adding he was awaiting the green-light from the Myanmar government.
