Helen Clark meets Condoleezza Rice

In the South Pacific region New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark held talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on tuesday.

Helen is going to meet President George Bush on Wednesday face to face. This is the first time she is going to meet him after 2002 when New Zealand refused to join the war in Iraq. Clark's second White House visit will include lunch with Bush and meetings with Rice, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and National Science Foundation director Arden Bement on Antarctic cooperation. Clark's trip to the US is seen as opening a new phase in bilateral relations, more than 20 years after military alliances were suspended by a law in New Zealand that banned nuclear weapons and vessels from its territory. Officials also said world trade reform and international environmental challenges would also be on the agenda, Clark acknowledged an apparent change in the Bush administration's focus on Middle East events.