Australia affirms U.S. alliance

CANBERRA, Australia — Despite the decision to withdraw all 550 combat troops from Iraq and ousting one of the Bush administration's closest foreign allies, the new Australian defense and foreign ministers insisted Saturday that there was no chill in bilateral relations with the U.S. and vowed not to remove any of their soldiers from Afghanistan's violence-plagued southern provinces.

Following a full day of talks with their American counterparts, the Australian ministers said the U.S. remained their most important alliance, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith calling it "indispensable" to the country's security.

"The alliance relationship transcends a Labor or Liberal government here, or a Democrat or Republican administration in the United States," Smith said at a news conference following meetings at the Australian Parliament building with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. "It's served both nations very well for 50 or 60 years."

Although the Iraq war remains unpopular in Australia, the level of anti-American sentiment here has not risen to levels seen in other close U.S. allies such as Britain. Analysts have said the loss in November of Prime Minister John Howard's government to Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd was due as much to domestic political issues as Howard's close embrace of Bush administration foreign policies.

Still, officials traveling with the U.S. delegation said they believed the annual meeting of defense and foreign ministers would help gauge the Rudd government's enthusiasm to maintaining close security ties with Washington, D.C.

Smith and defense minister Joel Fitzgibbon expressed a desire for continuity in bilateral relations, and Smith said that although Australia had no plans to increase troop levels in southern Afghanistan, where it has deployed 980 combat troops, the new government would look for other ways to assist the struggling Afghan government.

In recent weeks, Gates repeatedly has called on allies to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, but he appeared to soft-pedal the issue here. He made no specific request for more troops and acknowledged that Australian forces, which are deployed as peacekeepers in East Timor as well as their Iraq and Afghan missions, are facing similar overstretch issues as their U.S. counterparts.

"We're mindful of the fact that nearly half of the Australian army is deployed, between the Pacific Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan," Gates told reporters traveling with him on the flight to Canberra.