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HANOI - Foreign Minister Winston Peters hinted yesterday after talks with Condoleezza Rice that there could be a high-level summit next year between Pacific leaders and the United States.
He also said he had invited Dr Rice to visit New Zealand, which she was considering.
Mr Peters held
formal talks with his US counterpart on the final days of the ministerial Apec meeting in Vietnam.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was also present at the meeting, which followed a breakfast gathering of foreign ministers to discuss North Korea.
The talks between New Zealand and the United States centred on concerns in the Pacific.
"What I am saying is I think 2007 will be a year of closer co-operation and understanding between the United States and New Zealand," Mr Peters said.
He said there might be greater US engagement in the Pacific. "Whilst I can't announce that now, I think there will be progress in 2007 on that issue."
It is understood that might mean a meeting between Dr Rice and Pacific leaders around the 2007 Apec summit in Sydney or even with President George W. Bush.
Until recently, the rather pre-occupied US has been largely absent in the battle for influence in the Pacific compared to the regular overtures to its leaders made by China, Taiwan, Japan, the European Union and France.
In that competitive environment the US increasingly values New Zealand for its close association with the Pacific.
Mr Peters said the promised greater co-operation had "to mature into the future".
"I don't want to set out an agenda in which there are other parties that we are dependent on in terms of making a decision."
It was unclear what a Pacific summit might involve. "I don't want to presage what has to be agreed by the United States but I can say they will be giving it serious thought," said Mr Peters.
Mr Hill attended the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji last month and last year's in Papua New Guinea, a sign of its increasing concern in the Pacific.
Mr Peters said the relationship with the United States was going very well.
He said he had committed in his meeting with Dr Rice in July to a forward looking dialogue to strength the relationship between the countries.
The fact she had agreed to meet him formally in Vietnam from among 20 other foreign ministers was testimony to that.
It's the little things that count when small guy meets Mrs Big
The meeting in Vietnam yesterday between Winston Peters and Condoleezza Rice was the fifth between the pair, each in vastly different settings and in vastly different moods.
The latest diplomatic encounter took place in the cavernous National Convention Centre in Hanoi, where the Apec meeting is being held.
The foyer alone could host a World Cup Rugby final.
Covering 20,000 sq m, it is built on the outskirts of Hanoi, amid fast-rising high-rise apartments. Its undulating roof was barely visible in the haze that enveloped it yesterday.
It was not purpose built for Apec but was completed four years ago for the twice-yearly meetings of the 498-member National Assembly and other great events of the party.
In ordinary traffic (not that there is anything ordinary about Hanoi's traffic), it would take at least 40 minutes to get out to the stadium - oops, convention centre.
For Mr Peters' Mercedes motorcade, it would take about 38 minutes.
Such is the concentration of motorbikes clogging the streets, it is difficult to actually stop the traffic.
The Mercedes have the advantage in that they have a powerful horn, shaving precious minutes off the journey.
Mr Peters joined the conveyer belt of Foreign Ministers in line to see the No 1 Foreign Minister of the Free World in what is euphemistically called a bilateral.
When it comes to the United States, it is definitely a unilateral.
Despite requests by officials from New Zealand to have journalists join cameras momentarily to witness the first moments of the meet-and-greet between them, and even with a vouchsafe for them, the answer was no.
The US rules, over the big and the insignificant, even in communist Vietnam.
