UK And US Pledge To Continue Special Relationship

UK and US pledge to continue "special relationship"

The PM and President Bush have promised to continue to work closely together, agreeing that the relationship between the UK and US is the strongest bilateral affiliation for both countries.

Speaking at a press conference at Camp David, Mr Brown said that is was "very important" that Britain and America have shared values and that both countries had an "obligation to work for freedom and justice around the world".

President Bush echoed the Prime Minister's comments and pointed to a shared belief that "freedom and justice were fundamentals of life". He said he found the new Prime Minister to be "a principled man...a man who wants to get things done".

Commenting on the work that lay ahead for the two countries, the PM said:

"It is in Britain's national interest that, with all our energies, we work together to address all the great challenges that we face, also together: nuclear proliferation; climate change; global poverty and prosperity; the Middle East peace process which we have discussed and, most immediately, international terrorism."

He added that Britain and the US were "as one" in the fight against terrorism and that there should be "no hiding places for those who practise terrorist violence or preach terrorist extremism". There was, he said a "generation-long battle" in which both countries "can give no quarter".

Mr Brown also said that he and Mr Bush believed sanctions against Iran were the best way forward in dealing with the Iranian regime's alleged breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The next stage was to toughen sanctions with a further UN resolution, he said.

On Darfur, the PM said he and President Bush had agreed to "step up" pressure on the Sudanese government and to move forward with a UN resolution on deploying an African Union peacekeeping force to the region.

The Prime Minister also gave assurances that UK forces had "responsibilities to keep" in Iraq in encouraging political reconciliation and strengthening Iraq's own security capabilities.

ENDS

© Scoop Media