The tiny South Pacific nation of Nauru unexpectedly announced Monday that all 600 asylum seekers held at a controversial Australian detention center will be given freedom of movement on the island, and that all their asylum applications will be processed this week.

Asylum seekers have long been a contentious political issue in Australia, although it has never received anywhere near the number of refugees currently flooding into Europe as they flee instability in the Middle East and North Africa.

Successive Australian governments have vowed to stop asylum seekers reaching the mainland, by turning boats back to Indonesia wherever possible, and sending the rest for detention in camps on Manus island in impoverished Papua New Guinea, and on Nauru.