Best of friends: Brown denies rift with Obama

Gordon Brown denied reports of a rift with Barack Obama today following reports that Washington repeatedly rebuffed requests for a one-to-one meeting with the US president.

The Prime Minister, in New York for the United Nations, said he and Mr Obama continued to have "the strongest working relationship and the strongest friendship".

His comments came amid reports that the White House rejected five separate requests for a bilateral meeting during the four days Mr Brown is in the US for the UN and the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.

Mr Brown said: "President Obama and I have the strongest working relationship and the strongest friendship.

"I am not only very confident about the strength of the relationship between our countries and I am very confident about the relationship between the two of us."

Mr Brown said: "I talked to President Obama. I talked to him before I came to the meetings here, I talked to him at the meetings.

"I had a long talk with him after Monday's meeting. We are meeting today, we are chairing two meetings.

"The special relationship is strong and strengthening. And it's strengthening because there is a common purpose."

He went on: "We are dealing with exactly the same challenges, and we see things in very similar ways.

"We are about to make quite big changes to the way the international community operates to deal with these problems, and that is America and Britain working more closely together than ever."

Downing Street and the White House engaged in a damage limitation exercise after the reports of a rift emerged.

Mr Brown was apparently able to snatch some private "face time" with Mr Obama only in a kitchen during a dinner with other leaders in New York.

The White House released a statement dismissing suggestions of a snub as "absurd", and describing relations between the two men as "terrific".

"Any stories that suggest trouble in the bilateral relationship between the United States and UK are totally absurd," a spokesman said.

"We would add that President Obama and Prime Minister Brown enjoy a terrific relationship, they speak regularly on a range of the most difficult challenges facing our two nations, and meet frequently."

The spokesman added that the two leaders had already "conferred" during the climate change meeting in New York.

Downing Street accepted that there had been "numerous calls" between officials and the White House, where "potential meetings" had been discussed.

But a spokeswoman added: "We have said all along that the situation with formal bilateral meetings, that they were not pinned down but they would be spending time together in New York and at the G20, where they would be discussing pressing issues."

Asked whether the men had met in a kitchen, the spokewoman replied: "Anyone who has been to large international meetings of this type knows that meetings take place in corridors, kitchens and other parts of large buildings outside the auditorium."

No 10 will hope this evening's meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan - aimed at underlining support for President Asif Ali Zardari in his fight against the Taliban - will quash talk of a souring of the special relationship between the US and Britain. Mr Brown and Mr Obama are due to chair the event jointly.

Later today Mr Brown is set to face Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for the first time since the release of the Lockerbie bomber from a Scottish jail - the issue which has been cited as a possible cause of tension between the US and Britain.

The two men are due to attend the United Nations Security Council in New York amid continuing international tensions over the way Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was freed last month.

Mr Brown faces the unwelcome prospect that the Libyan leader will take the opportunity to embarrass him further - possibly by trying to engineer a public handshake.

It is the only time that they are scheduled to be in the same room together while they are at the UN, and the PM has made clear that if approached, he will express his anger at the jubilant reception which greeted Megrahi on his return to Libya.