Tehran talks turkey on asylum

Iranian officials have travelled to Canberra to begin negotiating a breakthrough deal on repatriation of failed asylum-seekers.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. ‘I can report that a delegation of senior Iranians have visited Canberra.’ Picture: Gary Ramage

Senior Iranian officials have travelled to Canberra to begin negotiating a breakthrough deal that could pave the way for the forced repatriation of thousands of failed Iranian asylum-seekers who ­arrived in Australia by boat.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited the once isolated nation of Iran earlier this year to work on building closer diplomatic ties with Tehran.

“One of the key outcomes of my visit to Iran in April was to seek the agreement of the Iranian government to consider the return of failed Iranian ­asylum-seekers who came to Australia under Labor’s watch,’’ Ms Bishop said.

“I can report that a delegation of senior Iranians have visited Canberra to commence negoti­ations, and I am advised that the discussions were constructive,’’ she told parliament yesterday.

She later told The Australian the delegation visited Canberra on June 15 and 16 and talks covered a range of issues including immigration and people-to-people links. “Australian officials hope to be invited to Iran to continue talks later this year,’’ she added.

Ms Bishop’s visit to Iran was the first trip to the state by an Australian minister in 12 years. Iran, which is in the throes of shaking off its pariah status, is increasingly playing a pivotal role in the fight against Islamic State.

Iran has steadfastly refused to accept any forced returns of ­asylum-seekers from Australia who failed to qualify for refugee protection and were deemed to be economic migrants.

The decision by Tehran to begin talks with Canberra is viewed as a big step forward; if Iran agrees to the forced repatriation of failed asylum-seekers, it would signal a major immigration breakthrough for authorities.

More than 8800 Iranians, predominantly male, remain in Australian detention centres or are on bridging visas in the community, Ms Bishop said. A further 660 Iranians are housed in regional processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

Ms Bishop said the Abbott government was committed to combating people-smuggling networks and was dealing with the “many legacies of Labor’s failed border protection policies’’ in which 52,000 people attempted to come via boat.

“This includes over 13,200 Iranians, most of whom had flown to Indonesia before destroying their travel documents.’’

More than 400 failed Iranian asylum-seekers have reportedly voluntarily agreed to return to their homeland since August 2012, receiving cash incentives and assistance from the International Organisation for Migration.

Earlier, Labor’s incoming nat­ional president Mark Butler refused to “leap’’ at shadows when asked if the ALP’s national conference would debate the turning back of asylum-seeker boats, a key plank of the Coalition’s Operation Sovereign Borders.

“We don’t know what conference will be debating on the conference floor,’’ Mr Butler, Labor’s environment spokesman, told the ABC.

“We took some very hard decisions towards the end of our ­period in government around regional resettlement that have ­already led to huge reductions in the number of boat arrivals.’’