Word: zealanders
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first foreign policy dispute of the second Reagan Administration bubbled to the surface last week from two improbable spots: New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, Australia. What had begun last year as a policy by New Zealand's new Labor government to establish the country as a nuclear-free zone was suddenly transformed into a threat to the 33-year-old ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, U.S.) defense pact between Washington and its longtime allies in the South Pacific...
...trouble dates from last July, after New Zealand's new Prime Minister, David Lange, 42, led his Labor Party to victory with, among other promises, the intent to ban port calls by nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels. The proscription applied to all foreign shipping, but it really meant U.S. naval vessels. At first it appeared that the matter could be compromised or finessed without great difficulty. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told Lange in Wellington last July that the U.S. would refrain from sending any naval vessels to New Zealand ports for six months or more. According...
...work out that way. Shultz was convinced that Lange's frequently stated intention of remaining within ANZUS meant that the Prime Minister would find a solution. After all, Lange had told Shultz that he endorsed a U.S.-New Zealand communique signed by the previous New Zealand government. The statement affirmed that "defense cooperation, including combined exercises, visits and logistical support arrangements, plays an essential part in promoting mutual security." Instead of rebuffing his party's antinuclear wing, however, it soon became apparent that Lange was siding with it. In late December, the U.S. sent a blanket request to New Zealand...
Since he came to power last July, New Zealand's Prime Minister David Lange has resisted U.S. pressure to modify an election promise to close New Zealand's ports to all nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships. Such a stand would effectively ban all U.S warships from New Zealand ports, since Washington declines to indicate which of its ships carry nuclear weapons. The matter came to a head last week when Lange refused a routine U.S. request to allow an American naval vessel to call on New Zealand during naval exercises in March. The Prime Minister thus set the stage...
Lange's snub of the U.S. came after he received a letter from Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, in which Hawke implied that New Zealand's antinuclear stand could harm the alliance. Responded Lange: "The policy is not anti-American. It is not antialliance. It is antinuclear." Washington's concern is that New Zealand's position might send a divisive message to other U.S. allies...