Barack Obama says the US and Australia will “ramp up” the fight against Islamic State in the wake of the Paris attacks and will work together to preserve international norms in the disputed zone of the South China Sea.
At the end of a bilateral meeting in Manila that spanned more than an hour, the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the US president pledged cooperation on security issues. Turnbull declared Australia would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the US in the fight against extremist violence.
It was the first time the two had met one-on-one in an official capacity.
Obama said they also discussed “reaching out” to Muslim communities at home to ensure people felt they were full participants in democracies in Australia and the US, and also to prevent radicalisation.
The two leaders discussed the tense situation in the South China Sea – an issue that forces Australia to delicately balance the interests of relationships with the US and Japan and the relationship with China.
The guided missile destroyer USS Lassen has sailed within 22km of the disputed Spratly archipelago in a direct challenge to China’s territorial claims.
Japan backs the US move, and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, raised freedom of navigation exercises with Turnbull during a conversation at the G20 summit in Turkey at the weekend.
Japanese reporters were told after the meeting that Turnbull had “shared Abe’s concerns” over China’s assertive posture in the region.
Obama said the two leaders had had an “excellent” discussion about maintaining freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Turnbull said Australia and the US were very much of the “same mind” on regional issues, by which he meant the South China Sea disputes.
“We are committed to the rule of law, to ensuring the big changes in this region occur in a peaceful manner and in accordance with international law,” Turnbull said.
Obama also invited Turnbull to Washington some time during the US winter, an invitation the prime minister accepted.
One area of intense focus in the bilateral meeting was Syria, and the imperative of a reaching a political solution for the country, as well as strategies to defeat Isis.
Russia and the US reached consensus at the G20 summit at the weekend on the need for “a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition” in the war-torn country, including future UN mediation and a ceasefire.
The rapprochement follows a major lobbying effort by the US and European leaders in the run up to the G20 to persuade Vladimir Putin to step back from Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and train the country’s military assets on Isis rather than on the Syrian opposition forces in defence of the regime.
Australia was excluded from a meeting of foreign ministers in Vienna ahead of the G20 to broker a deal on a political transition for Syria – apparently at the instigation of the Russians – but Turnbull met Putin briefly at the summit in Antalya.
Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, told reporters in Manila that Australia, as the second largest military contributor in Iraq, would work closely with the major powers during any transition in the country.
“Given that the US and Russia hopefully are forming a single coalition, we’ll continue to work closely with them to ensure that Australia continues to play its part in seeking to disrupt and destroy Daesh,” Bishop said.
She added that she expected military operations in the Middle East to intensify, but hosed down suggestions of boots on the ground.
In a column in the Australian newspaper, the former prime minister Tony Abbott called for Australia to consider “less restrictive targeting rules for airstrikes and the deployment of special forces on the ground in support of local forces”.
Bishop rebuked Abbott, saying Australia would not enter any country unilaterally.
The meeting with Obama kicks off the Apec summit for Turnbull. The conversation on Tuesday follows one-on-one meetings for the new prime minister with the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the leaders of Japan, Singapore, the EU, India and China at the G20.
The Apec summit runs over Wednesday and Thursday in Manila.
The shocking violence in Paris has changed the dynamics and atmospherics of both the G20 summit in Turkey and proceedings in Manila. Security in the Philippine capital is tight.
But despite the acute focus on security issues, Apec is a grouping of Pacific rim countries that has trade as its primary focus.
Obama is expected to meet on the sidelines of the Apec summit with 11 other world leaders to discuss the contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The TPP, if formalised, will create the world’s largest free trade area.
The US-led deal, as well as prompting trade liberalisation, is seen by many analysts as a strategic counterbalance to growing Chinese economic power and influence in the region.
Before the opening of the Manila summit Putin used an opinion piece published in the Straits Times to criticise the TPP.
At the G20, the US and Russia came to terms on Syria but Putin is unhappy at the secrecy surrounding the negotiation of the TPP. “Overall, the creation of new free trade zones will help to create good conditions for liberalising trade and investment flows in the region,” Putin says in the piece.
“At the same time, however, the confidential fashion in which the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations were conducted is probably not the best way to facilitate sustainable growth in the Asia-Pacific region.”
