The Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced this morning that New Zealand and the Pacific island of Nauru had agreed to take in over 400 asylum seekers stranded aboard a Norwegian freighter in the Indian Ocean.
Howard said the asylum-seekers will not set foot on Australian soil, but would be shipped by a third country to New Zealand and Nauru where their refugee claims will be assessed.
He said Australia was negotiating for a third country to provide a ship for the asylum seekers, mostly Afghans, to reach New Zealand and Nauru and could not say when they would be transferred.
The exhausted asylum-seekers have been confined to the container ship Tampa since they were rescued from a sinking Indonesian ferry last Sunday as they sailed from Java to the Australian territory of Christmas Island.
Australia has repeatedly refused to accept the Afghan refugees despite internationals appeals including a plea from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson.
Howard said Australia would cover the costs incurred by Nauru in processing the asylum seekers.
The owner of the Tampa, shipping line Wallenius Wilhelmsen, said the freighter was in no condition to sail the asylum seekers to either New Zealand or Nauru.
We are absolutely delighted to hear the news, the company's regional director Peter Dexter told Australian radio.
The United Nations has been pressing Australia to let the asylum-seekers to land on its Christmas Island outpost as a temporary measure while their claims for refugee status are processed.
Australia has consistently called on Indonesia to take back the asylum seekers.
Howard also announced saturation surveillance of the Indian Ocean between Indonesia and Australia's remote northwest coast in an attempt to deter further asylum-seekers, but he gave no details of how Australia would stop boats.