Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday denied a report alleging that US President George W. Bush had asked him what the G20 was, amid mounting political tensions over the embarrassing story.
The newspaper report alleged that Rudd had pushed Bush for a summit of G20 countries during a telephone call about the global financial crisis on Oct. 10 and had been stunned when the US president had asked: “What’s the G20?”
The Weekend Australian report, which cited unnamed sources, said the phone call had occurred during a dinner party hosted by Rudd at his official residence in Sydney.
CALL
Rudd said he had phoned Bush to discuss the role of the G20, which brings together the world’s largest industrialized and emerging economies, in the crisis and stressed that the US leader had not been ignorant of the body.
“The president of the United States has consistently emphasized the importance of the G20 in response to the global financial crisis,” Rudd said.
“The purpose of my call to the president was specifically to discuss the role of the G20 … That was the explicit purpose of the call and the president did not make the remarks that have been attributed to him in the article in question.”
Rudd would not confirm whether the story came from his office.
“On the source of individual stories … there are multiple conversations with multiple people from political offices and elsewhere which leads to the construction of a story,” he said.
APOLOGIZE
Conservative opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has called on Rudd to apologize to Bush for leaking details of the phone call.
The alleged exchange was leaked “in a way that was clearly authoritative, that clearly came from the prime minister’s office,” Turnbull said on Sunday.
Former foreign minister Alexander Downer, who served in the previous conservative government, has called for an investigation into the alleged leak.
The G20 will meet in Washington on Nov. 15 at Bush’s invitation to discuss the financial crisis and Rudd is expected to attend.
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