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President Trump, Australia PM have ‘worst call’

4 || risingbd.com

Published: 08:42, 2 February 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
President Trump, Australia PM have ‘worst call’

Risingbd Desk: A phone call between US President Donald Trump and Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull has called into question a refugee resettlement deal.

The Washington Post reported Mr Trump called the conversation "the worst by far" of his calls with world leaders that day, and cut it short.

Mr Trump later tweeted that he would "study this dumb deal".

Struck with the Obama administration, it would see up to 1,250 asylum seekers to Australia resettled in the US.

Australia has controversially refused to accept them and instead holds them on offshore detention centres on the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

PM Turnbull had been seeking clarification on the future of the deal after Mr Trump last Friday signed an executive order temporarily barring the entry into the US of refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Turnbull took place at the weekend, and was one of four the US president had with world leaders, including Russia's Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post quotes senior US officials, briefed on the call, as saying that the conversation should have lasted an hour but was abruptly ended after 25 minutes by Mr Trump.

Mr Trump reportedly said accepting the refugees, many of whom are from Iran, Iraq and Syria, would be like the US accepting "the next Boston bombers", who were from the Caucasus region of Russia.

The official version of the call from the US was more restrained.

On Monday Mr Turnbull said he had spoken to Mr Trump and thanked him for agreeing to uphold the deal.

US presidential spokesman Sean Spicer also said Mr Trump intended to uphold the deal.
But Mr Trump's tweet on Wednesday - coming after the Washington Post story - has thrown fresh doubt on the deal.

Source: BBC



risingbd/ Feb 2, 2017/Mukul
 

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