Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has batted away claims by President Donald Trump that Australia should be getting more involved in the Middle East conflict, saying the US ally has \u201cdone what we have been asked to do\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Trump, angry that allies have not taken a bigger role in the conflict, fired a salvo at Australia saying he had expected the land down under to get more involved in the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, they should get involved, and I was a little surprised they said no, because we always say yes to them,\u201d Mr Trump said when asked by media at the White House what he expected from Australia.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n When asked on Saturday what he thought about Mr Trump\u2019s sledge, Mr Albanese said Australia had provided support that \u201cwas asked for\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe truth is that we have said yes to the request of the UAE for the E-7 Wedgetail Aircraft,\u201d Mr Albanese said at a press conference in Melbourne.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s operating there with personnel operating as well.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition to that, we\u2019ve sent MRAAMs.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s making a difference as well to intercept missiles or drones aimed at the UAE. So, we continue to provide the support that we have been asked to provide.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked if Australia would provide further support if asked by Mr Trump, Mr Albanese said: \u201cWell, he hasn\u2019t asked, so I\u2019m not going to go through hypotheticals. We have done what we have asked been asked to do\u201d.<\/p>\n He then added: \u201cWe have done what we have been asked to do.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are comments at various times, I\u2019ve said very early on, I don\u2019t intend to comment on all of what someone else says, and I stand by that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve signed up to the statement that\u2019s been issued, has been coordinated by the United Kingdom that speaks about the work that we\u2019re doing to ensure the Straits of Hormuz are open. That\u2019s critical.\u201d<\/p>\n A positive relationship with Mr Trump remains critical for Mr Albanese who is sinking billions of dollars into making sure AUKUS happens.<\/p>\n Mr Albanese has sunk $20 billion into making sure WA\u2019s HMAS Stirling and the Henderson precinct are ready to become key components of AUKUS by maintaining nuclear submarines and being part of rotations through Garden Island.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a very positive conversation with President Trump, one on one, on the phone just a little over a week ago. We continue to engage constructively with our American friends,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n Mr Albanese called upon the \u201cIranian regime to stop its attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it be on the economic foundations of global trade, or whether it be on the 12 neighbours that it has attacked, unprovoked, whatsoever, not participants in the war, but have been attacked by Iran.,\u201d Mr Albanese said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to see what their strategy is, except for alienating the Iranian regime from all of its neighbours.<\/p>\n Mr Albanese\u2019s deputy, Defence Minister Richard Marles refused to buy in on Mr Trump calling NATO allies \u201ccowards\u201d over a refusal to commit forces to secure the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last thing you\u2019ll get from me is a running commentary on what the president has said,\u201d Mr Marles said on Saturday at a separate press conference.<\/p>\n Mr Marles said said Australia was already deeply engaged in the defence of Gulf states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has batted away claims by President Donald Trump that Australia should be getting more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,12241,44,1720],"class_list":["post-554433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}