SYDNEY (AP) — U. S. Vice President Mike Pence and Australia’s prime minister swept aside any lingering tensions Saturday over an Obama era agreement on the resettlement of refugees, joining forces to urge China to take a greater role in pressuring North Korea to…
Pence and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull repeatedly praised the decades-long American-Australian alliance following a meeting in Sydney, with the vice president passing along President Donald Trump’s “very best regards” and thanking Turnbull for calling on Beijing to be more assertive in the international effort to de-escalate Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.
Meeting at the governor-general’s residence with sweeping views of Sydney Harbour and the city’s famed opera house, the two leaders appeared at pains to present a united front following an unusual period of strain between the longtime allies. The anxieties were sparked by a spat between Turnbull and Trump over a refugee resettlement deal struck by former President Barack Obama.
Pence said Saturday that the U. S. would honor the agreement even if the administration didn’t agree with it. Under the deal, the U. S. would take up to 1,250 refugees housed by Australia in detention camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Trump’s anger over the agreement led to a tense phone call with Turnbull in January and an angry tweet in which the president called the deal “dumb.”
“President Trump has made it clear that we’ll honor the agreement — that doesn’t mean we admire the agreement, ” Pence said during a joint news conference with Turnbull.
The prime minister, for his part, said that “whatever the reservations of the president are, ” the decision “speaks volumes for the commitment, the integrity of President Trump, and your administration, sir, to honor that commitment.”
The fallout over the deal has strained the typically cozy alliance between the U. S.
