PRAustraliaRemembers - Embassy of Australia

Embassy of Australia

United States of America

Embassy address: 1601 Massachusetts Ave, NW Washington DC 20036 - Telephone: (202) 797 3000 - Fax: (202) 797 3168

Media Release
Embassy of Australia
Office of Public Affairs
Washington DC
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
12 September 2006
Contact: Chelsey Martin
(202) 797-3165

AUSTRALIA REMEMBERS AND REAFFIRMS FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM

Australia’s Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to the USA in the fight against terrorism.

In an address at the US Embassy in Canberra to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mr Howard said that Australians gathered to mark the attack on the United States, which represented an attack on all countries in the world which value liberty and freedom.

“We gather in remembrance and reaffirmation as both a friend and ally of the people of the United States and also as citizens of the world, to maintain the fight against terrorism,” Mr Howard told the US Embassy audience, which included US Ambassador, Robert McCallum and Mrs McCallum.

“We remember those from many nations, including Australia who lost 10 citizens in the World Trade Centre and was, several years later, to suffer even greater losses in the terrorist attacks in Bali, but also to remember other nations who lost citizens on that fateful morning.

“The [terrorist attack] reminds us, of course, that, although it took place on American soil and was designed deliberately and calculatedly to do great damage to the people of the United States, it was an attack on values which the entire world holds in common,” Mr Howard said.

“And that is why, we gather, not only in remembrance of those who lost their lives, but to honour those who risked their lives, and in some cases lost their lives trying to rescue those in both the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre.”

“Terrorism is the enemy of all people of goodwill. It is the enemy of all of the great religions of the world; it is a blasphemy on Islam for the name of Islam to be invoked to justify terrorism. It is also the enemy of all the value systems that are important to Australia and the United States,” Mr Howard said.

“I know on behalf of all of my fellow Australians, we think particularly of the losses and suffering of the people of the United States on the 11th of September 2001.

“And all of us, I know in our different ways and our different approaches, rededicate ourselves to maintain the values that are universal values of individual liberty and dignity, of freedom of association, of freedom of religion and freedom of thought.”

In reaffirming Australia’s commitment to maintain the fight against terrorism, Mr Howard said: “We do so in the belief that those universal values will, in the end, because they represent the truth of mankind’s existence, they will in the end, triumph.”

ENDS.