GMA accepts Blair invitation to London meet

President Arroyo has accepted the invitation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to a "business meeting" in London next month.

A Palace official told The STAR yesterday Mrs. Arroyo will fly to London after her second working visit to the United States Jan. 27-29 and her scheduled state visit to Canada afterwards.

The official, requesting anonymity, disclosed the President will only stay overnight at the British seat of government to meet with Blair at his official residence at No. 10 Downing Street.

"Prime Minister Blair will discuss with President Arroyo about the all-out support of the Philippines to the international coalition against terrorism," the official said.

The British government, through Blair, has been the main ally of the United States in its coalition against terrorism following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon in Washington DC.

The same Palace functionary doubted if Mrs. Arroyo will be able to pay a courtesy call on England’s centenarian Queen Elizabeth "because the Queen would still be on vacation at that time."

Mrs. Arroyo confirmed her acceptance of Blair’s invitation during her brief talk with British Foreign Minister Ben Bradshaw who paid a courtesy call on her at Malacañang Thursday evening.

Bradshaw was accompanied at the Palace by the British ambassador to the Philippines.

Also Thursday, Filipino-born Dr. Rey Pagtakhan, Canada’s secretary of state for Asia-Pacific, paid a courtesy call on the President upon his arrival in Manila for an official visit.

Pagtakhan told Mrs. Arroyo that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien is looking forward to her visit to Vancouver in January.

"It is my confidence that the visit of the President to Canada ... will attend to that point of presenting the Philippines to Canadian investors," Pagtakhan told Palace reporters after his courtesy call.

The President’s planned trip to the US will again take her to New York City, where organizers of the World Economic Forum have transferred the venue of their annual meeting instead of Davos, Switzerland.

Mrs. Arroyo earlier accepted the invitation of the WEF to address the conference among heads of state and government.

During her working visit Nov. 19-22 in the US, the President reiterated to President George W. Bush the Philippines’ support to the anti-terrorist coalition’s military strikes on Afghanistan to flush out suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

In a statement yesterday, Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao disclosed Mrs. Arroyo sent her official letters of appreciation to US Congress for passing two separate but similar resolutions expressing Washington’s "deepest gratitude to the government and people of the Philippines" for their support after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The US Senate passed a resolution on Dec. 10, two days after the US House of Representatives passed its own resolution lauding the Philippines as "among the most steadfast friends of the US during a time of grief and turmoil."– Marichu Villanueva