An Australian decision to send an extra 450 troops to Iraq to protect Japanese engineers there was not taken in exchange for a free trade deal with Tokyo, Prime Minister John Howard said yesterday after critics questioned his motives.
Howard's decision this week went against a two-year-old promise not to increase Australian military strength in Iraq. The prime minister said he made it after personal approaches from Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and British leader Tony Blair.
The 450 troops will replace withdrawing Dutch soldiers in safeguarding Japanese military engineers who are carrying out humanitarian work in southern Iraq. Australia has about 900 troops in the Middle East, but only 300 in Iraq.
The opposition Australian Greens Party claimed Howard offered the extra troops ahead of a planned visit to Japan in April as part of a strategy to convince Tokyo to agree to a free trade deal.
But Howard said that neither a free trade pact nor any other economic trade-offs were discussed with Koizumi.
"Australia will continue, separate and apart from this decision, to negotiate with Japan on things of that kind," Howard told Japanese public broadcaster NHK in a television interview. "But in no way did I say to the Japanese government that if we do this, will you do something else -- it's not like that."
Japan, Australia's biggest export market, would not be asked to contribute to the A$300 million (US$236 million) a year cost of keeping the additional troops in Iraq, Howard said.
"There is only one source of remuneration for Australian troops and that is from the Australian government acting on behalf of the Australian people," Howard said in the interview.
The Howard government has always insisted that its foreign policy is separate from trade considerations.
However, many see a free trade pact between Australia and the US as Washington's reward to Canberra for sending 2,000 troops to Iraq.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS