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11/17/2024 - Australian Consul-General in Honolulu, Hawai’i Greg Wilcock recently visited the Northern Marianas and Guam.
“Our consulates-general across the U.S. and, of course, our embassy in Washington, we make it our business to get to know the country decision makers, local community leaders as well as possible. So that is the context of my visit here. It is kindling those relationships and sustaining them,” he told Marianas Press.
In addition to Hawai’i, Wilcock told Marianas Press that they will “pick up responsibility” for covering and sustaining relationships in the CNMI and Guam.
“Australia, too, like the U.S. is a Pacific Country. We aim to be present throughout the region to know how to talk to and actually just for its own sake learning about these communities and what it is that sustains them, what their future is,” Wilcock said.
The Australian Consul-General’s office plans to visit the Marianas twice a year. Their visit comes amid major military developments in the Pacific.
Wilcock told Marianas Press, “Australia is a close friend and ally of the U.S. It has been for many, many years. Our alliance goes back 80 years. We’ve worked together over generations in this region to sustain peace and security and that is what we are doing now. It is unfolding in different ways now. “
He added, “Your viewers and you may know about the AUKUS, the Australia, U.K., and U.S relationship. One aspect of that is Australia is purchasing nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines from the U.S. and those submarines, like the rest of our Navy and our forces, generally, will operate in this region and through this region again, in the interest of peace and security and sustaining the conditions that have underpinned the prosperity of this region for decades.”
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