No official reaction yet over cartoons, says PM

CANBERRA - New Zealand still hasn't had any official reaction from Middle East countries to the publication by two of its newspapers of cartoons of Mohammad and was continuing its diplomatic efforts to make its position clear, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today.

Speaking in Canberra, where she is to meet Australian Prime Minister John Howard later today, Helen Clark said she thought New Zealand's position was well appreciated in the Middle East.

"We haven't had any official reaction fortunately ... because I think the New Zealand Government's attitude has been very robust about this, not resiling from any democratic values we enjoy in New Zealand, but saying we are interested in trying to build greater understanding, not rip people apart," she told ABC Radio.

"I think our position on these issues is well appreciated in the Middle East and you can be assured every diplomatic effort is going in to ensure it is."

The PM repeated her criticism of The Dominion Post and The Press newspapers for printing the cartoons.

"It's important to stress the right to free speech is paramount in New Zealand but, of course, that does not mean one agrees with every decision that every media outlet makes.

"I think that both the publication and the extreme reaction we have seen around the world do nothing to build understanding between faith communities and if the world is crying out for anything right now it is for us to be talking across those faith boundaries to each other and not past each other.

"I felt the media outlets in NZ really lost an opportunity to have a more reasoned debate about what we needed to do to build greater understanding."

Asked about the risk to New Zealanders overseas and its troops in Afghanistan, where they have been deaths during protests over the cartoons, Helen Clark said the Government was mindful about that.

"One of the earliest bits of advice I got when it was clear the papers in New Zealand intended to publish was that there would be security implications. When one sees embassies and consulates in peaceful countries like Norway and Denmark trashed as they have been one does really fear for one's own people."

- NZPA