Gates to Reinforce U.S. Relations With Australia, Malaysia

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 — Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates will leave tomor­row night for a whirl­wind trip to Aus­tralia and Malaysia, where he will rein­force the U.S. com­mit­ment to the region with a long­stand­ing U.S. ally and an increas­ing­ly close part­ner, Pen­ta­gon Press Sec­re­tary Geoff Mor­rell told reporters today.

Gates will join Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton and their Aus­tralian hosts, For­eign Min­is­ter Stephen Smith and Defense Min­is­ter John Faulkn­er, in Mel­bourne for the 25th anniver­sary Australian‑U.S. min­is­te­r­i­al meet­ings, Mor­rell announced. 

The annu­al AUSMIN meet­ings, as they’re known, alter­nate between the Unit­ed States and Aus­tralia. Gates attend­ed his last Aus­tralian ses­sion in Can­ber­ra in 2008. 

This year’s talks with cov­er a broad range of for­eign pol­i­cy, defense and strate­gic issues, includ­ing ongo­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in Afghanistan, Mor­rell said. 

He not­ed that Aus­tralia is the largest non-NATO con­trib­u­tor to the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force, with more than 1,500 troops serv­ing there, pre­dom­i­nant­ly in Uruz­gan province in Region­al Com­mand South. 

The dis­cus­sions also will focus on the U.S.-Australia partnership’s role in Asia’s over­all secu­ri­ty envi­ron­ment, Mor­rell said. The par­tic­i­pants also will address their efforts to help the region con­front its human­i­tar­i­an, devel­op­men­tal and envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges and to help part­ner nations build capac­i­ty in issues rang­ing from dis­as­ter relief to mar­itime security. 

“This year’s gath­er­ing is an occa­sion to reflect on the strength and resilien­cy of the U.S.-Australian alliance, a bond between two democ­ra­cies of shared … cul­ture, inter­ests and val­ues, while also con­sid­er­ing the path for­ward togeth­er,” Mor­rell said. 

The meet­ings, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Jan­u­ary, were post­poned fol­low­ing the Haiti earth­quake so Gates and Clin­ton could remain in Wash­ing­ton to help in man­ag­ing U.S. assis­tance efforts, Mor­rell noted. 

From Aus­tralia, Gates will trav­el to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Dato Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Haji Razak and Defense Min­is­ter Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi. 

Fol­low­ing on Clinton’s ses­sions there this week, Mor­rell said, Gates’ vis­it is “anoth­er sig­nal of our deep­en­ing rela­tion­ship with Malaysia.” 

Gates and his Malaysian hosts will focus on strength­en­ing their bilat­er­al mil­i­tary ties and build­ing on the increas­ing num­ber of joint exer­cis­es con­duct­ed over the past six years, he said. They also are expect­ed to dis­cuss Malaysia’s con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al human­i­tar­i­an and peace­keep­ing mis­sions and to explore addi­tion­al areas for future cooperation. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →