Only 3 Australia's refugees agree to meet Cambodian officials on resettlement plan: Cambodian official

Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sar Kheng said Wednesday that only three of the Australia's refugees in Nauru agreed to meet with a Cambodian delegation on a resettlement plan.

"Our first delegation traveled to Nauru (last week) to introduce the refugees about the resettlement in Cambodia, but the delegation had met only three refugees because the rest of them denied meeting with our officials," he told reporters.

"I don't know whether the three refugees will come to resettle in Cambodia or not," he said.

Cambodia and Australia signed the refugee deal on Sept. 26, under which Australia will send refugees, who intend to seek asylum in Australia and are being held in an offshore detention camp in the Pacific nation of Nauru, to resettle in Cambodia.

The deal has drawn criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties in both countries. They claimed Cambodia is too poor to take in Australia's refugees and accused Australia of shirking its human rights responsibilities to other poorer and under-resourced nations.

Cambodia said it is its international obligation to take in asylum seekers because Cambodia is a signatory to the 1951 Refugees Convention and 1967 Protocol related to Refugees. Endi