US President Barack Obama will host Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday, a day before announcing his revamped Afghanistan war strategy.
"Australia is an important ally of and partner with the United States in addressing the many common regional and global challenges we face," the White House said in a statement on Friday.
The war in Afghanistan will be a top priority in discussions between the two leaders a day before Obama delivers a key address on the course of the conflict in which he's expected to announce the deployment of tens of thousands more US troops to the country.
Australia has about 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, making it the ninth biggest contributor of international forces there.
Rudd visited Afghanistan earlier this month and pledged that Australia would be there "for the long haul".
The White House said Rudd and Obama would also discuss climate change in the run-up to a United Nations climate summit that opens in Copenhagen on December 7.
The United States has about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, bearing by far the largest share of the burden of the fight against the Taliban and remnants of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
NATO allies, whose 42,000-strong contribution swells the number of foreign forces in Afghanistan to about 110,000, are due to consider sending more troops at gatherings of the military alliance on December 3-4 and on December 7.
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