Malaysia strove Sunday to justify its unwillingness to grant political asylum to Indonesians from war-torn Aceh who enter the country illegally, reports said.

The government will not recognise illegal immigrants seeking political asylum even those hwo have received assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said.

"The government does not regard people from a country facing conflict - such as the people of Aceh who came here without any documents - as refugees," Syed said.

"We must explain (to UNHCR), whatever conflict is happening in the Indonesian province, because of its proximity to Malaysia, this country will be flooded by immigrants seeking political asylum, just like in the past during the Vietnamese war, causing problems to Malaysia," he was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency.

Malaysia was not insensitive to the plight of the Acehnese but the country had encountered various problems when dealing with the Vietnamese refugees who reached half a million people at the height of the post-war exodus in the 1970s, he said.

He said the government did not want to encourage more Acehnese to come to Malaysia to seek political asylum.

"We also want the UNHCR to understand Malaysia's position and action because the government faces many problems relating to illegal immigrants," he said.

No recognition

Malaysia was criticised by the UNHCR, the US Congress and human rights watchdog Amnesty International over the recent arrests of more than 200 Acehnese, including women and children, outside the UN agency's office here.

Syed Hamid has said the police arrested the Acehnese because they did not have valid travel documents and because registering them as refugees would have created a flood of illegal immigrants.

Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, has maintained that it does not recognise refugees or asylum seekers.

The detainees are being held in the Langkap detention centre in northern Perak state across the narrow Malacca Strait from Aceh, and other centres around the country, awaiting deportation.

Indonesia launched a massive operation to crush separatist guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on May 19 and says more than 700 rebels have been killed since then.

Human rights activists and other groups have questioned whether the military figures for rebel deaths also include civilians. - AFP