Papua New Guinea has insisted that a permanent agreement on resettlement of refugees is still being determined but has signalled temporary concessions for those held in Manus Island detention centre by offering them bridging visas and “cultural training”.

PNG’s immigration minister, Rimbink Pato, on Wednesday formalised Port Moresby’s position on the asylum seekers, saying they would be offered the equivalent of Australian bridging visas and cultural training at an Australian-funded centre in East Lorengau on Manus.

Asylum seekers who have been processed and found to be refugees will have classes in English and pidgin, or Tok Pisin. They will also be taught the PNG way of life so they can fit in with locals.

But Pato said: “These people will not yet be permanently resettled.”

PNG’s prime minister, Peter O’Neill, last month told his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, that Port Moresby would be tearing up the existing resettlement agreement, signed in July 2013 by Kevin Rudd, and offering a revised one for cabinet to sign off on.

“The prime minister, Peter O’Neill, announced on 19 October that we will conduct a comprehensive program of public awareness raising and consultation about refugee resettlement before developing a new national refugee settlement policy for cabinet’s endorsement,” he said.

The Manus Island MP, Ron Knight, has told Guardian Australia that locals will accept the refugees if they have skills that are lacking on the island. “If they are surgeons or doctors they will be welcome,” he said. “If they have skill sets that we don’t, they will be welcome.”

Without such skills, the locals would be reluctant to accept them: “Why would we take people into our overcrowded towns? Why would we adopt more problems?”

Questions remain about where the refugees will live. “I don’t think anyone [local provinces] will take them. Ninety-seven per cent of land in PNG is customarily owned, and the government-owned land that remains is already very crowded,” Knight said.

He warned of violence if refugees encroached on locally owned properties. “Land in PNG is something that people die over, willingly.”

Knight said there was definitely a “move towards permanent resettlement in PNG, but the question is how”.

Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said it was still too dangerous for refugees to live permanently in PNG.

“The fact is they haven’t, and are not able, to resettle,” she told Guardian Australia. “This announcement is a way of buying time [for the PNG government] to continue to keep them in some form of detention.”

Amnesty International is also concerned about the safety of refugees who may be granted asylum in PNG.

“It is not clear what steps have been taken to ensure their security [and] alleviate tensions between refugees and local people,” Amnesty’s refugee campaign coordinator, Graeme McGregor, said.

Curr said PNG was “under immense pressure” to resettle the refugees “because of money given by the Australian government”.

Guardian Australia has sought comment from Australia’s immigration minister, Scott Morrison.