Today's Date:

(...) Phil Goff and I have just had a particularly friendly, warm meeting, it was the first time we’d met. I’m very pleased with this meeting and, in fact, we’ll be seeing each other again next week in New York. Our relations are symbolized by the fact that we had the good fortune and honour to welcome Mr Kevin Clark, the New Zealand Prime Minister, to our country twice in the past two years, and in particular this June when we commemorated the Landings in Normandy.

This was the opportunity for us to remember definitively the part the New Zealand war veterans played in liberating the European continent. We have reasons for remembering, we’ve also got reasons for looking ahead of us, and when we do so there are issues, fields, spheres where we act jointly despite, if I may say, the distance between our two countries. The distance isn't in fact as great as people think, since France is present in the Pacific and means to go on playing from her territories, and maintaining good relations with all the neighbouring countries, an important role in the security and development of the Pacific region. When I talk about security, I'm talking, of course, about all forms of security, and in particular ecological security. It's an issue to which I am personally committed, which I made France's foreign policy priority at the recent French ambassadors' conference, and the Minister and I agreed to work on this subject because it's a matter of concern to many Pacific islands, atolls and countries.

We also, on the eve of the United Nations session, exchanged our views – and we generally see eye to eye – on the major international issues and conflicts, I'm thinking particularly of the Middle East and Iraq.

(...)

IRAQ