Australian PM is to lift suspension on Sri Lankan asylum applications

Under the plan people seeking asylum in Australia would be housed in the centre while their credentials were checked.

Ms Gillard said the move was aimed at thwarting traffickers and that talks with East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta and the UN had already begun.

Treatment of asylum seekers is a contentious issue in Australia, where elections are expected this year.

Opposition plan

The leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, also announced a new asylum policy on Tuesday.

Mr Abbott said he would "turn back the boats" by restoring the Pacific Solution set up by former Prime Minister John Howard, under which new arrivals were placed in detention centres in Pacific states, such as Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

That system was scrapped by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Australia currently sends asylum seekers to its Indian Ocean processing centre on Christmas Island.

However, the detention centre is overcrowded and many asylum seekers have been moved to the mainland while their applications are assessed.

	AI calls for more details on her plan to establish processing centres in East Timor

In unveiling her plan for an East Timor processing centre Ms Gillard said that her "government is not interested in pursuing a new Pacific Solution".

However, she claimed that establishing "a regional processing centre removes the incentive, once and for all, for the people smugglers to send boats to Australia".

"The purpose would be to ensure that people smugglers have no product to sell. Arriving by boat would just be a ticket back to the regional processing centre," she told the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney.

During the speech, her first major address touching on foreign policy, Ms Gillard also announced an immediate restart to the processing of asylum claims from Sri Lankans, but said that the same suspension would not be lifted for Afghans however.

Decision welcomed

Welcoming Prime Minister’s decision to lift the suspension the Amnesty International has called for more details on her plan to establish processing centres in East Timor.

“If what the Government has in mind is simply a re-badged Pacific solution then this is of course unacceptable,” said Amnesty International Australia’s National Director Claire Mallinson said in a statement.

It also rejects the proposal by the opposition leader Tony Abbott that asylum seekers who arrive without proper identification papers should be immediately turned back.

“People fleeing dangerous situations or persecution cannot be expected to arrive with their personal papers in order,” Claire Mallinson said.

However, Amnesty International does welcome the commitment by Mr Abbott to increase the number of refugee places for people applying from outside Australia.