Gordon Brown meets George Bush, discusses Afghanistan, Iraq

LONDON: British finance minister Gordon Brown, who is expected to take over from Tony Blair as prime minister, has held talks for the first time with US President George W. Bush, his department said on Friday.

A spokesman for the Treasury in London confirmed media reports here that the pair's first face-to-face talks came as Brown was in Washington for meetings at the International Monetary Fund. 

The two men discussed Afghanistan and Iraq as well as trade during 45 minutes of talks at the White House.

Both the BBC and The Guardian newspaper, which carried a lengthy interview with the chancellor of the exchequer Saturday, said Brown was at the White House for talks with Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

The meeting with the president was unplanned, they added.

One of the key issues facing Brown when he assumes power within the next few months is his relationship with the United States and the president.

Blair was personally and politically close to former president Bill Clinton but has been criticised for his perceived unquestioning loyalty to Bush, particularly over the divisive Iraq war and Israel's bombing of Lebanon.

But setting out his stall for the leadership of the governing Labour Party at its annual conference last September, Brown showed few signs of distancing himself from Blair's unpopular foreign policies. 

Some analysts even see him as more of an Atlanticist than Blair and more in tune with US politics. His favoured holiday destination is Cape Cod, on the US east coast.