FED: Howard to open new Anzac site at Galliipoli

AAP General News (Australia)
04-10-2000
FED: Howard to open new Anzac site at Galliipoli

CANBERRA, April 10 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard will pay tribute to Australia's
World War I diggers at the Anzac Day dawn service in Gallipoli later this month.

Mr Howard and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark will be at the 85th anniversary
service on April 25, which will mark the opening of a new memorial site at Anzac Cove.

Officials expect more than 10,000 people at the new site, which was built to counter
overcrowding at the traditional dawn service at the Ari Burnu war cemetery.

More than 11,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers were killed in the Gallipoli campaign
in 1915.

Mr Howard's overseas trip will also take in France and Israel, but there will be a
strong focus on Australia's war heritage.

In France, Mr Howard will make a pilgrimage to the WWI battlefields of the Somme in
France, where his father and grandfather both fought.

Mr Howard will also use the trip for a series of bilateral meetings, with Turkish Prime
Minister Bulen Ecevit and President Suleyman Demirel, and with French Prime Minister Lionel
Jospin and President Jacques Chirac.

"Building on our historical links with Turkey, I hope to encourage greater substance
to bilateral relations and further growth in trade and investment," Mr Howard said in
a statement.

In Israel, Mr Howard will attend a Holocaust Day memorial and will receive an honorary
doctorate from the Bar-Ilan University.

He will hold talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, as well as Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat in Gaza.

"Australia strongly supports a lasting and genuine peace in the Middle East and my
discussions with Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat will encourage the efforts of
all parties toward this objective," he said.

AAP jg/rs/br

KEYWORD: HOWARD GALLIPOLI

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