Veteran Asia-hand Admiral Harry Harris is to be the new US ambassador to South Korea, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed, filling a post that has been vacant for 15 months.<\/p>\n
Harris, the commander of the US Pacific Command, who is known for his hawkish positions on China, had been due to become Washington\u2019s man in Canberra, until a late switch.<\/p>\n
The move comes with the Korean peninsula in sharp diplomatic focus, with the leaders of North and South due to hold a summit on Friday, and US President Donald Trump expected to meet Kim Jong Un in the next few months.<\/p>\n
Turnbull said he had been informed of the change of plans early this week, just as Harris was set to begin confirmation hearings in Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed that Harry\u2019s not coming because he is a really good friend and I think Harry will be disappointed that he is not coming to Canberra too because he loves Australia,\u201d Turnbull said late Wednesday during a visit to France.<\/p>\n
But Harris \u201cis a guy of enormous experience and ability and given the situation on the Korean peninsula, given the tensions there, I can well understand why the president has decided that the admiral\u2019s expertise and experience is going to be put to better use in Korea than in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ambassador\u2019s job in Canberra has been vacant for nearly a year-and-a-half but Turnbull was quick to play down any notion that the last-minute switch sending Harris to Seoul represented a snub to one of Washington\u2019s closest allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the relationship between Australia and the United States… is so deep, it\u2019s so intense it operates at so many levels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The US charge d\u2019affaires, Jim Carouso, said he shared Turnbull\u2019s disappointment that Harris would not be taking charge of the embassy, but acknowledged his skills were needed in Seoul as Trump prepares for an unprecedented meeting with North Korea\u2019s Kim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Veteran Asia-hand Admiral Harry Harris is to be the new US ambassador to South Korea, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed, filling a post that has been vacant for 15 months. Harris, the commander of the US Pacific Command, who is known for his hawkish positions on China, had been due to become Washington\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29208,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29206\/revisions\/29208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}