New Zealand offers to take Australia’s asylum seekers

New Zealand’s prime minister said his country was prepared to accept some asylum seekers Australia has sent to detention camps on impoverished Pacific island nations, though there appears to be little chance Australia will take up the offer.

The debate over whether New Zealand should take Australia’s unwanted asylum seekers, from the Middle East and Asia, comes amid uproar over what will happen to 267 asylum seekers who are expected to be transferred from Australia to the Pacific atoll of Nauru.

The issue of their fate was raised amid annual talks between Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his visiting New Zealand counterpart John Key.