Obama Postpones Asia Visit with "Deep Regret"
Washington - President Obama has had to postpone for a second time his planned trip to Australia and Indonesia in order to oversee continuing efforts to stop a massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and clean up the environmental damage.
According to a statement released by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs June 3, the president telephoned Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to express his "deep regret" over the need to postpone the visit.
"The president looked forward to rescheduling so that he can visit both countries soon," Gibbs said, adding that Obama "underscored his commitment to our close alliance with Australia and our deepening partnership with Indonesia."
Gibbs added that Obama will be holding full bilateral meetings with both leaders in late June on the margins of the meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations in Toronto.
According to President Yudhoyono's spokesman, the Indonesian leader "fully understands" why Obama needs to remain to deal with "the worst environment disaster in the history of the United States."
"[Yudhoyono] said he himself would find it hard to leave the country where there's a disaster at home, for example a tsunami," spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told reporters June 4.
According to press reports, between 22 million and 47 million gallons of crude oil have leaked into the Gulf since British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20. The hole in the ocean floor reportedly is spewing out oil at a rate of thousands of barrels a day, generating the worst oil spill in U.S. history, with increasingly severe catastrophic impacts on the environment and the economic life of the U.S. states bordering the Gulf.
This is the second time President Obama has had to cancel his planned travel to Indonesia and Australia. The previous trip, which also included a stop in Guam, had been scheduled for March 21-26, but Obama decided he needed to be in Washington when Congress took a final vote on domestic health care legislation, one of the centerpieces of his domestic agenda.
The president has personal ties to Indonesia, where he lived for four years ( http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2010/March/20100309134404esnamfuak0.801388.html ) in his youth with his mother, stepfather and sister. During his visit, he plans to sign a new, strategic Comprehensive Partnership Agreement covering a range of issues, including economic ties, investment and trade, food security, science and technology, educational exchanges, social issues, politics and military cooperation in a critically important geographic region.
Indonesia has also been a critically important U.S. partner on security issues such as fighting terrorism, as well as Obama's broader efforts to advance relations with the Muslim world.
