WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A U.S. Navy warship will visit New Zealand next month for the first time since the 1980s, ending a 30-yearold military stalemate between the countries that was triggered when New Zealand banned nuclear warships.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced Tuesday that he has given clearance for the destroyer USS Sampson to visit during celebrations of the New Zealand navy’s 75th anniversary.
The visit marks a continued thaw in military relations, which turned frosty when New Zealand enacted its nuclear-free policy in the mid-1980s.
The policy prevents ships that have nuclear weapons or are nuclear-powered from visiting. Because the U.S. won’t officially confirm or deny whether its ships have nuclear capabilities, New Zealand imposed a blanket ban on U.S. ships.
But Key said he’d taken advice from his own officials and was “100 percent confident” the USS Sampson wasn’t nuclear-powered or carrying nuclear weapons.
“I think it’s a sign of the fact that the relationship between New Zealand and the United States is truly in the best shape it’s been since the anti-nuclear legislation was passed,” Key said. “All of those last vestiges of the dispute that we had have really been put to one side.”
The dispute began in 1985 when the New Zealand government refused to allow a U.S. destroyer to visit. The U.S. responded by downgrading its military ties. New Zealand passed its nuclear-free law in 1987.
The relationship improved after 2001, said Rear Adm. John Martin, the chief of the New Zealand navy, when New Zealand agreed to send special forces and later a reconstruction team to Afghanistan