US President Barack Obama has invited Netherlands to participate in the forthcoming G-20 summit to be held in the US.
The meet is to take place at Pittsburg in Pennsylvania on September 24-25. The invitation was personally extended by Obama to the visiting Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, when the two leaders met at the White House yesterday. The invitation was readily accepted by Balkenende.
"I extended my personal invitation to the Prime Minister to participate in the next G20 summit in Pittsburgh, because we think that the Netherlands not only is one of the world's largest economies and most active internationally, but the Prime Minister has very specific expertise and experience in working with a whole range of world leaders and I think his contribution will be greatly appreciated," Obama told reporters later.
Besides the current global economic condition and the G-20 Summit, Obama and Balkenende discussed the current situation in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and climate change.
"We discussed the issue of Guantanamo and the importance of European countries working with us to assist in that process. And we're grateful for the encouragement that we've received there," Obama added.
"We discussed the issue of climate change. Obviously the Netherlands has a lot of experience in dealing with the battle against rising oceans, and they've got a deep investment in dealing with this issue. They've also taken terrific strides on issues of clean energy and we think that we can get some good advice there, in terms of how we can work together," the US president said.
The Dutch Prime Minister said the two leaders are convinced that it's important that they are talking about not only the financial crisis, but also about the Millennium Development Goals, about the issue of energy, climate change.
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"So the Copenhagen summit must be successful. And therefore, it's important that we'll have a very successful meeting in Pittsburgh. And I want to thank you very much for the invitation to be there," he said.
"I am convinced that we can only solve the problems worldwide when we are working together. And we also spoke about the issue of public health and the health system. In my country, we have had a lot of discussions and now I know it's now on the agenda here in the United States. So it is an enormous responsibility to change things," Balkenende added.