Rudd, Obama unlikely to ever become best of friends, says Oz envoy

Sydney, Sep 21(ANI): Kim Beazley, who will take up the position of Australian Ambassador to the United States in February 2010, has said that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and US president Barack Obama are unlikely to become close mates.

Beazley, a keen student of US politics, reckons that it's not Obama's style to pick close mates from among world leaders.

"He (Obama) will be quite cautious in developing the sort of proximate relations that George (W) Bush for example had with John Howard. I don't actually think from my observation of him that this matters all this much to Kevin Rudd. I think that it's an interesting challenge," The Age quoted Beazley, as saying.

Howard and Bush had a close friendship, which played a significant role in shaping up the US-Australia alliance, but post-election it appears to have suffered.

Beazley further said that Rudd and Obama may not become close friends, but Rudd does follow USA ideology.

"I think if you went around the globe, looked at the key issues for Obama ... there would be no leader in the world who comes out on exactly the same page as President Obama does compared with Kevin Rudd," Beazley said. (ANI)