Australia offers Syria crisis aid as Jordan king visits

By Recep Sakar

MELBOURNE, Australia

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Thursday that Australia will provide a further A$220 million ($162 million) in aid for the Syrian crisis during a visit by Jordanian King Abdullah II to Canberra.

“We are committing A$220 million over three years to respond to the Syrian crisis, in addition to the A$213 million provided in humanitarian assistance since 2011,” Turnbull said in a joint press conference.

He said the countries’ ministers would “reaffirm our close partnership in providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq and Syria, so many of whom Jordan is caring for as a generous host to hundreds of thousands of refugees”.

King Abdullah II also thanked Australia for its contributions in response to the Syrian crisis, and its pledge in September 2015 to resettle an additional 12,000 refugees who fled the war-torn country.

“This is a tremendous moral responsibility - that comes as no surprise to us that it’s your country and your people,” he said.

During the king’s first visit to Australia, the two sides signed an agreement aimed at countering money laundering and terrorism financing.

“As key members of the counter Daesh coalition, Jordan and Australia stand together in rejecting those who seek to impose their perverse world views on others through division and violence,” Turnbull said Thursday.

“This memorandum of understanding is an example of the practical steps our governments are taking to confront and defeat the scourge of global terrorism,” he added.

Over the past year, Australia has been criticized for the slow pace of its resettlement of Syrian refugees, but Immigration Department figures cited by ABC News show that 6,507 people arrived in Australia as of the beginning of November.

At least 9,513 visas have been granted.

There are more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, and so far has spent more than more than $20-$25 billion on their care, according to Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced, according to United Nations figures.