Palin Sits Down With 2 Foreign Leaders

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Palin Meets World Leaders

Sarah Palin met her first world leaders Tuesday. It was a tightly controlled crash course on foreign policy for the Republican vice presidential candidate in New York.

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Foreign diplomats said they knew little about Palin, especially compared with Biden, who serves as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"The assumption is that she has not had great international experience," said one diplomat from a major European country. "Apart from that, nobody knows her. Biden is quite a well-known figure" in his capital, the diplomat said. "He's been there many times. Palin, well, she is an absolute stranger."

In the brief moments when Palin was visible to the media -- after reporters protested, her aides allowed one print journalist to watch the first minute of her afternoon sessions -- she sought to forge a personal bond with Karzai.

The Afghan president told Palin about his young son, who was born in January 2007. With both of them smiling, and with Palin patting her heart at one point, Karzai told the governor that his son's name is "Mirwais, which means 'The Light of the House.' "

"Oh, nice," Palin replied.

"He is the only one we have," Karzai said.

Speaking later at the Asia Society, Karzai described his meeting with the vice presidential nominee as "very good. I found her quite a capable woman. She asked the right questions on Afghanistan." He added, "She was concerned and she said how can she help, so I'm very pleased with that meeting."

Karzai and Uribe each discussed the topic of energy with Palin, Biegun said, with both of them describing it as "a national security issue."

Palin also visited the offices of Kissinger, with whom she met for more than an hour. She talked with the former secretary of state about some of the United States' most sensitive international relationships, Biegun said, with countries such as Russia, Iran and China.

While Palin may not be well known overseas, she has captured the attention of many foreign leaders. British member of Parliament Hazel Blears, for instance, included Palin in remarks about how politics are turning off voters, made at a recent Labor Party conference in Manchester.

"I just think there is so much anti-politics -- not just in this country but around the world," Blears said. "One of the reasons why Sarah Palin has been such a phenomenon is because she's anti-politics, anti-Washington. Her politics are horrendous, but actually she's struck a chord with people -- 'I'm a maverick, I'm not part of those powerful people' -- and people identified with that."

A senior British official said that Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, protested Blears's remarks in a note to Britain's U.N. ambassador, John Sawers. But Grenell denied that, saying he merely sent a lighthearted e-mail to Britain's U.N. spokesman, Michael Hoare. "Mikey and I are very good friends and we talk politics all the time," he said.

Staff writers Colum Lynch at the United Nations and Karen DeYoung and Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.