AUSTRALIAN AMBASSADOR FOR PEOPLE SMUGGLING TO VISIT RI

Jakarta Forum - Jakarta, Jan 26 - Australian Ambassador for People Smuggling Peter Woolcott is scheduled to visit Indonesia soon, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.

"It`s proposed that Ambassador Woolcott, our Ambassador for People Smuggling, travel to Indonesia in the near future. Last time I checked the precise times had not been finalised but if it`s not the coming week, it`ll be the week after," he said in a press statement obtained by ANTARA on Tuesday.

While never been in Indonesia in his capacity as the ambassador for people smuggling, Woolcott had been regularly contacting the relevant Indonesian authorities and those of member countries of the Bali Process Forum, he said.

A few hundreds of Sri Lanka`s Tamil people who failed to reach Australian waters after their boat was stopped by an Indonesian naval patrol boat in the Sunda Strait on October 10, 2009.

This matter had drawn the attention of both the government and media of the two countries.

With regard to the Sri Lankan asylum seekers who are stuck in Merak, Foreign Minister Smith said they should willingly leave their boats to enable the UNHCR to do its work.

"We`ve made it clear that - publicly, as I have - that we would want the people on the boat in Merak to voluntarily embark from the boat to enable processing to occur," he said.

The appointment of Peter Woolcott as Australian ambassador for people smuggling affairs had been announced by Foreign Minister Smith on June 8, 2009.

The appointment of the senior diplomat who had been accredited to Indonesia in 2001 and 2002, replacing Michael Potts, was proof of Australia`s seriousness in combating people smuggling, human trafficking, and other transnational crime with the countries in the Asia Pacific region.

The measure was proof of the big challenge facing Australia resulting by the difficult situation in the countries of origin of the asylum seekers like Afghanistan, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, and Sri Lanka, he said.

In carrying out his tasks, Ambassador Woolcott works together with many countries, the UN Commission for Refugees, and the International Migration Organization to follow up on the results of the Bali Process forum to more practical level under various cooperation schemes with various relevant sides.

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