REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PHNOM PENH -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has not made a final decision to take in four Australia-bound refugees yet, a government official said Saturday.

The official was responding to reports that the four refugees were flown from a detention camp in Nauru to Australia's Darwin to wait for a flight to Cambodia, "Four refugees have voluntarily agreed to resettle in Cambodia after our officials have visited Nauru for three times to inform them about the situation in Cambodia," Gen. Sok Phal, chief of the General Department of Immigration, told reporters.

He said the General Department of Immigration, through the Ministry of Interior, has already submitted the documents of the four refugees to Hun Sen for a final decision.

"Up to this hour, the head of the government has not made any decision yet," he said.

The four applicants are a Myanmar's Rohingyan minority man, an Iranian couple and an Iranian man.

Cambodia and Australia signed a refugee deal in September under which Australia will send refugees who intend to seek asylum in Australia and are being held in an offshore detention camp in the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru to resettle in Cambodia.

The deal has drawn criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties in both countries. They claim Cambodia is too poor to take in the refugees and accused Australia of shirking its human rights responsibilities to other poorer and under-resourced nations.

Cambodia said it is its international obligation to accept refugees since it is a signatory to the 1951 Refugees Convention and the 1967 Protocol related to Refugees.

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