SOUTH-EAST Asia’s top diplomat has rejected as ‘‘counterproductive’’ the Liberal policy to tow back asylum seeker boats to Indonesia, warning the plan could jeopardise Australia’s ties with its neighbours.



But Surin Pitsuwan, head of the 10-nation association that covers south-east Asia, has cast doubts whether an Abbott government would actually carry out its threat to force asylum seekers to return to Indonesia.



‘‘It will be counterproductive,’’ he told The Age. ‘‘Just to impose certain decisions on the neighbours at the risk of losing many ... other issues on the international agenda. I don’t think it’s worth it.’’



In what is the sharpest critique to date from a senior figure in the region, Dr Surin also said countries understood that the Opposition Leader was primarily targeting an audience at home.



Dr Surin is the secretary-general of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a group of 10 nations that includes Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, all grappling with the explosion of asylum seekers crossing their territory en route to Australia.



‘‘Rhetoric, political rhetoric, you have to take [Abbott’s comments] as such,’’ he said. ‘‘I think South-East Asia or ASEAN is really mature enough to appreciate that some of them are internal rhetoric for internal consumption, for internal political communication.’’

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said today that Dr Surin had not been briefed on the Coalition's policy and that his comments betrayed a lack of knowledge and understanding of the opposition's plans.

"I can only assume that he is responding to a misrepresentation of that policy, because his comments don't reflect an understanding of how the policy works," he told the National Times this morning.

"The Coalition's policy is not about pushing back problems to the region, it is about working with the region to ensure that there is no problem in the first place."