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Palin Meets With Foreign Officials

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The Washington Post

Published: September 24, 2008

NEW YORK - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made her diplomatic debut Tuesday, meeting with two heads of state who had traveled to New York for the opening of the United Nation's General Assembly.

Palin, who met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, engaged in small talk and policy discussions as part of her effort to augment her foreign policy credentials.

Palin, who has traveled outside North America once, also met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at his New York office.

The campaign of Sen. John McCain sought to highlight the sessions with several photo-ops, although they limited the media's access, at one point barring print reporters from observing Palin's initial exchange with Karzai.

Shuttling from one meeting to another, Palin traveled across New York with the buzz of a high-profile personality.

Her motorcade shut down traffic and for a time police officers barred entry to her midtown hotel. Tourists pulled out video cameras to film the governor, prompting several police vehicles to drive on the sidewalk to protect the SUV in which Palin was riding. Traffic backed up, crowds gathered behind the barricades and a supporter yelled, "We love you Sarah!"

Palin also received her first national security briefing on Tuesday from Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and several of his aides, a standard practice for the two parties' nominees.

In a press briefing with reporters, Palin's senior foreign policy adviser Stephen Biegun said the Alaska governor did not issue policy pronouncements during the sessions with Karzai and Uribe, each of which lasted about a half-hour.

Biegun said her goals were "to establish a relationship and to listen." Meetings with foreign leaders, he added, "are a very important part of her being prepared on Day One."

Biegun and McCain's senior foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, accompanied her to Tuesday's sessions.

Palin will continue to meet with foreign leaders today when she sits down with some of the United States' closest allies in the developing world, including Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and Indian Prime Minister Manhoman Singh, several of whom are personally friendly with McCain.

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said officials from his country are eager to discuss the fight against terrorism with members of both the GOP and Democratic tickets.

The prime minister of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, will meet with Palin today.

"President Zardari is engaging with all candidates as part of his effort to strengthen the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which is central to stabilizing a very dangerous region of the world," Haqqani said. "We would be interested in Gov. Palin's thoughts, and we would happily answer her questions."

Palin's talks with the foreign leaders resemble the trip Democratic nominee Barack Obama took over the summer, when he met with military and foreign leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan, Britain, France and Germany.

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