Key to cement relations with US visit

Prime Minister John Key will pay an official visit to Washington in the first few months of next year following a personal invitation to the White House from President Barack Obama.

New Zealand and American officials have been working on arrangements for the visit, which may be timed to coincide with an Obama-instigated conference next April on nuclear proliferation and security to which Mr Key has also been invited.

The Prime Minister's trip was mentioned in a written answer from the President to a question posed by a Washington-based journalist which subsequently appeared on an internet news site.

Mr Key, who was last night flying home following the summit of Apec leaders in Singapore, confirmed to the Herald that he had received an invitation to the White House and would take it up early next year.

The separate invitation to the conference on nuclear security, which is expected to be attended by around 40 other prime ministers and presidents, is understood to reflect the high regard held for New Zealand's international efforts to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Mr Key's White House date is a measure of what is becoming a fast-expanding relationship between Wellington and Washington following the years of diplomatic impasse over nuclear-powered ship visits to NZ.

The rapport Mr Key has struck with Mr Obama was evident at Apec, where they had what the PM said was "quite a lengthy discussion" during Saturday night's official dinner for the 21 leaders. The President also appeared to have been briefed that it was the birthday of Mr Key's wife, Bronagh.

The PM thanked Mr Obama for deciding to work with New Zealand and other members of the Trans Pacific Partnership as a first step towards a goal of a vast free trade area stretching across the Pacific and taking in countries in Asia and North and South America.

Mr Key had hoped to secure a formal bilateral meeting with the President at Apec. There was always going to be only a slim chance of that given the demands on Mr Obama's time and the priority given to far more crucial bilateral relationships.

But any prospects of securing that prize were dashed completely by Mr Obama's late arrival in Singapore.

However, Mr Key talked to the President during the leaders' retreat and at a breakfast meeting with other delegation chiefs to discuss measures to cut greenhouse gas ahead of next month's UN conference in Copenhagen.

Following the breakfast, the Prime Minister gave a gloomy assessment of the prospects of hammering out a new international agreement. And the end-of-summit communique justified his pessimism by containing watered-down climate change goals.