"I thank President Trump for his commitment to honor that existing agreement," Turnbull said in the follow-up to Sunday telephone conversation with Trump, as quoted by the New York Times newspaper.
Turnbull did not specify neither the number of the refugees, who would be sent to the United States, nor the deadline of the resettlement agreement’s implementation.
In November 2016, Washington and Canberra concluded a one-time deal on resettling migrants from the detention facilities on the islands of Australia’s Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus to the United States. The refugees are usually kept in the two centers while their applications are being processed by the Australian authorities.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order blocking all refugees from coming to the United States for 120 days and suspended the entry for citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, namely Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia for 90 days. The move caused concerns in Australia as most of the refugees that would be transferred to the United States under the resettlement agreement are Iranian and Iraqi nationals.
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