Australia PM to meet would-be 'soul mate' Obama

Australia's Kevin Rudd on Tuesday becomes one of the first world leaders to meet US President Barack Obama, an encounter that could prove to be a meeting of political soul mates.

But the summit offers a tough choice for the Australian prime minister, who experts say is eager to get close to the popular new US leader, but who faces opposition at home to committing more troops to Afghanistan.

"I'm not saying we're going to agree on everything; our job is to look at everything in terms of Australia's national interest," Rudd said before arriving in Washington on Monday.

"But I think I'm going to have a good relationship with President Obama."

Two months into office, Obama has handed out only select invitations to come see him in Washington.

He will meet a long list of foreign leaders at next week's Group of 20 economic summit in London.

Rudd told The Washington Post in a weekend interview that the "return of US global leadership on the financial crisis" had been a "breath of fresh air."

While Australia and the United States are longstanding allies, Rudd had a visibly uneasy relationship with former president George W. Bush whose brash Texan style endeared him to Rudd's straight-shooting predecessor John Howard.

Rudd, 51, and Obama, 47, both come from humble upbringings and lived for years overseas.

Politically, each changed their country's course upon taking office by ordering troops out of Iraq and vowing action to fight climate change.

"They are ideological soul mates," said Alan Dupont, director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

"Both are personally inclined to be analytical individuals, both have a degree of detachment about how they look at things," Dupont said.

"They will be able to connect intellectually, there is no doubt about that."

Considering Australia's comparatively small clout and vast distance from the United States, it remains to be seen if the countries can ever develop the same type of "special relationship" heralded between some US and British leaders.

But Dupont said Rudd was eager to prove to Australian voters that his Labor Party can be just as close to the United States as the Conservative Party.

"He will certainly like to play up his influence over Obama. Everybody wants to see Obama and there's not a whole lot of people who've gotten to see him yet," Dupont said.

Rudd comes to Washington just as the Obama administration puts final touches on its new strategy to root out extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama has been widely tipped by commentators here to ask Rudd to increase the 1,100 Australian troops in the war-torn country as the US builds up its own forces there.

But nearly two-thirds -- 65 percent -- of 1,200 voters responding to the poll published in The Australian newspaper said they were against sending any more Australians into battle.

Rudd told Australian reporters after arriving in Washington Monday that Australia's military commitment to Afghanistan was not "a blank check."

"Every time we lose one of our brave men and women in uniform in Afghanistan I understand fully the concerns of the Australian people about this war and about where it goes in the future," he said.

"President Obama has that concern as well, that's why we'll be working together on it," he was quoted as saying by the national AAP news agency.

Before Rudd, Obama has met at the White House only with the leaders of Japan, Britain, Brazil and Ireland, along with China's foreign minister and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Obama also flew to Canada to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper.