Australia looks like rejecting East Timor solution

The Australian Government appears to have rejected an offer by UN officials on East Timor to accept the hundreds of refugees who are stranded on a ship that rescued them .

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia is unlikely to send the refugees to East Timor because the country still has no formal Government.

East Timor's de facto foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said the island would be happy to house the refugees as long as they did not stay too long and the UN agreed to pay all costs.

But Mr Downer said: "It would be a gross overstatement for there to be a focus on East Timor.

"We are having discussions with a number of countries. It's much less likely to be East Timor than somewhere else."

Bernard Kerblat, head of the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in East Timor had said: "We have the capability of dealing with 15,000 refugees. The sooner this crisis is resolved through the most intelligent solution, the better for the individuals involved."

As the refugees begin their fifth day in sweltering temperatures on the deck of the Tampa, a Norwegian container ship off remote Christmas Island, Prime Minister John Howard said he saw no early resolution to the standoff.

"I believe it is in Australia's national interest that we draw a line on what is increasingly becoming an uncontrollable number of illegal arrivals in this country," he said.

Australia is also talking with other countries, including Norway and New Zealand, as it seeks to solve the problem. Officials from Australia, Indonesia and Norway are to meet later today in Geneva for further talks.

In a statement, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark welcomed what she termed the "internationalisation" of the issue, and said her Government is examining whether it can be part of a solution.