Australia warned over 'Pacific solution'

Australia's John Howard, left, at a media conference with new PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (CNN) -- Papua New Guinea will continue to provide a detention camp for Australian-bound asylum seekers, but warns the situation cannot continue indefinitely, the nation's new prime minister has said.

Newly elected leader Sir Michael Somare told media late Tuesday his government would honor the agreement it had with the Australian government but hoped eventually to close down the detention center on Manus island.

For the past year, Australia has been shipping asylum seekers bound for its shores to detention camps in PNG and on the tiny island nation of Nauru, as part of what the conservative Howard government dubs the "Pacific solution".

"I made my position very clear ... we will not take more than 1,000 refugees," Somare told a joint media conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in the PNG capital of Port Moresby.

"This is an agreement which the previous government signed. We will honor it. We will allow the center to continue and ... hopefully it will fade out eventually," Somare said.

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The Manus island detention camp has been controversial in PNG with some politicians suggesting Australian pressured PNG to accept the deal by threatening to withhold aid -- a claim the Australian government rejects.

PNG, an impoverished nation of 5.1 million, was administered by Australia until 1975.

This year it will receive over $190 million (Aust. $350 million) from Australia -- a sum it relies upon to provide many basic services.

Prime Minister John Howard said he was grateful for PNG's help in implementing his government's "Pacific solution" and indicated the number of asylum seekers on Manus island was unlikely to increase.

Howard, who is in PNG en route to the South Pacific Forum in Fiji, said Australia's aid budget to PNG had been discussed but said it was premature to discuss whether that amount might be increased.

He said there was no country more deserving of Australian aid than PNG.

Global warming

The issue of aid and Australia's handling of asylum seekers are likely to be major issues at this year's 16-nation South Pacific Forum which begins Thursday.

Some of the island nations consider Australia's tactic of paying Pacific nations to hold asylum seekers in detention to be arrogant and bullying.

Apart from PNG, Canberra is also a major aid donor to other Pacific nations, many of whom operate tiny, subsistence or agriculture-based economies.

The issue of global warming will also be high on the agenda, with low-lying atoll nations such as Tuvalu under threat from rising sea-levels.

Australia, a major global exporter of fossil fuels, has angered Pacific nations by refusing to sign the Kyoto treaty on global warming.