Christopher Luxon promised to bring a renewed energy to New Zealand's relationships in South East Asia as he launched his first major overseas trade trip as Prime Minister this week.
But even before he'd landed in Singapore — the vital gateway to 650 million consumers as he put it — Luxon was being asked to comment on Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel.
And the New Zealand Government's position on Iran's attack is clear — it strongly condemns it.
"What we've seen as an Iranian strike, which is unprecedented from Iranian soil onto Israeli soil," Luxon told reporters in Singapore today.
"And that is something that we just don't want to see — any escalation in the region."
Iran launched the attack in retaliation for Israel bombing its embassy in Damascus and the New Zealand Government was a lot less outspoken on that.
When asked whether her felt Israel had provoked Iran by blowing up their embassy he replied, "I'm not getting into that".
When pushed on whether New Zealand should have also condemned the embassy attack, the Prime Minister stuck to his line that New Zealand wants to see the situation "de-escalate".
At his joint press conference Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong summed up the situation by pointing out there probably wasn't too much countries such as ours could do about it.
"I think it is a very troubled world," Loong added, "we can't solve the problems in the Middle East. They can only be managed".
But there was progress on the trade front, with the prime ministers announcing they had agreed to "elevate the relationship".
They were looking to build on the Singapore-New Zealand Enhanced Partnership that was signed in 2019, by streamlining supply chains between our countries particularly to ensure that goods could move seemlessly during emergencies, such as during the pandemic when Singapore sent New Zealand medical supplies while sending food in return.
Singapore was planning a delegation focused on its food security to New Zealand later this year.
Luxon said the Singaporean military's live-fire exercises in New Zealand would resume next year and he wouldn't rule out allowing Singapore to train to fly military drones in our airspace.
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