US is Britain's number one ally: UK minister

London, July 15: New British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, seeking to quash speculation that London may distance itself from Washington over Iraq, insisted today the United States was still Britain's number one ally.

"It is the single most important bilateral relationship," he told BBC Television in his first broadcast interview since taking office.

"Our commitment to work with the American government in general and the Bush administration in particular is resolute," he said, stressing there was no change in tone.

Since Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as British prime minister last month, he has been at pains to underline there will be no cooling of Anglo-American relations but two of his ministers have offered mixed signals.

Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said in a speech in Washington that while Britain stood beside the United States in fighting terrorism, isolationism did not work in an interdependent world.

Then Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch Brown followed up in a weekend interview by saying that Britain had to nurture a wider range of allies and predicting London and Washington would no longer be "joined at the hip".

"POODLE"

Blair's decision to back President George W Bush and go to war in Iraq sent his popularity plummeting in Britain and contributed to his departure after a decade in power. He was lampooned as "Bush's poodle".

The change of premiership has prompted speculation that Britain might accelerate troop withdrawals from Iraq. Britain has been gradually reducing numbers and now has about 5,500 troops in the south.

When pressed on troop plans, Miliband said in his television interview "I dont want to get into the prediction game." The new foreign secretary launched a weekend media blitz to quell talk of a policy shift.

Writing in the News of the World tabloid, he said there would be no change to the "special relationship" between London and Washington.

"With a new Brown government, some people are looking for evidence that our alliance is breaking up. There isn't any and there won't be any," he wrote.

Brown is flying tomorrow to Berlin for talks and plans to visit Paris and Washington after that.

He has said he will continue to work closely with the US administration.

"We'll not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges we face around the world," he said, when asked to comment on minister Douglas Alexander's words.

REUTERS >