Donald Trump,Australian Prime Minister Turnbull have tense phone call over Muslim refugees.

Australia’s prime minister said his country’s relationship with the United States remained “very strong” but refused to comment on a newspaper report on Thursday that an angry President Donald Trump cut short their first telephone call as national leaders.

At the heart of the weekend conversation between Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States. On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump tweeted a complaint about the deal, referring to the 1,250 refugees that were agreed upon in the deal as “thousands.”

Turnbull declined to comment on reports in The Washington Post that the president had described the agreement as “the worst deal ever” and accused Turnbull of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”

Turnbull also would not say whether Mr. Trump had abruptly ended the expected hour-long conversation after 25 minutes as the Australian attempted to steer the conversation to other topics.
“It’s better that these things - these conversations - are conducted candidly, frankly, privately,” Turnbull told reporters.

Turnbull did, however, tell reporters about what Mr. Trump said about the refugee agreement.

“The President assured me that he would continue with, honor the agreement we entered into with the Obama administration with respect to refugee resettlement,” Turnbull said.

Under the agreement, refugees from among around 1,600 asylum seekers, most of whom are on island camps on the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, would be resettled in the U.S. Australia has refused to accept them and instead pays for them to be housed on the impoverished islands.

“I can assure you the relationship is very strong,” Turnbull said. “The fact we received the assurance that we did, the fact that it was confirmed, the very extensive engagement we have with the new administration underlines the closeness of the alliance. But as Australians know me very well: I stand up for Australia in every forum - public or private.”