U.S. will allow ships from New Zealand to berth at Pearl Harbor

New Zealand and the United States announced stronger military-to-military contacts this week that will allow New Zealand’s naval vessels to berth in Pearl Harbor during next summer’s Rim of the Pacific war games.

“This will be the first time a New Zealand navy ship will have visited Pearl Harbor in more than 30 years,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during a news briefing Monday with New Zealand Minister of Defense Jonathan Coleman at the Pentagon.

But it’s not the first time that New Zealand warships have been in Hawaii for RIMPAC.

The frigate Te Kaha and tanker Endeavour were here in 2012 for the biennial exercise.

New Zealand in 1984 banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from its ports as part of its anti-nuclear policy. U.S. policy was to neither confirm nor deny if its ships carried nuclear weapons, so no declaration meant no port visits.

In turn, the United States banned visits to its military ports by New Zealand warships and that meant the New Zealand ships had to tie up at touristy Aloha Tower.

The ban was an embarrassment for the two nations.

Military-to-military relations between the United States and New Zealand had been improving since at least 2003, when New Zealand sent troops to Afghanistan.

In 2010, a “strategic partnership” agreement, the Wellington Declaration, “nearly normalized the relationship,” the Pentagon said.

The agreement helped pave the way for New Zealand to return to RIMPAC for the first time in 28 years. But the military port ban continued.

On June 19, 2012, the two countries signed the Washington Declaration at the Pentagon, expanding the defense relationship even further.

Since then, the two nations held the first joint defense policy talks in almost three decades. New Zealand and the United States also co-chaired a meeting of Pacific army chiefs in Auckland in September.

An additional step will be military-to-military talks with New Zealand in Honolulu in November, Hagel said.