Update | New asylum seeker controversy strains Australia-Indonesia relations

Reports that the Australian navy added three passengers to an asylum seeker boat turned back to Indonesia have threatened to further damage already strained relationships between the countries over Australia’s tough policies to deter boat arrivals.

The crew of an asylum seeker boat found on an Indonesian island told Indonesian authorities that Australian border control officials added an Indonesian sailor and two asylum seekers from Nepal or Albania to the boat before it was turned back from waters near the Australian island territory of Ashmore Reef on Sunday, Agus Barnas, spokesman for Indonesia’s co-ordinating Ministry for Politics, Law and Security, said on Wednesday.

Australia’s Border Protection Minister Scott Morrison refused to comment on the crew’s allegations, maintaining his government’s policy of keeping such operations against people smuggling secret.

If true, opposition lawmakers argue that the transfer of foreigners to another boat amounted to an escalation of Australia’s border protection policies of turning back boats that Indonesia complains breach its national sovereignty.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that if confirmed, “this is a very serious development.”

Speaking in the sidelines of an international leaders’ summit on the resort island of Bali, Natalegawa said he had been informed that the three passengers had been added to 18 asylum seekers aboard the returned boat.