New Zealand envoy says durable Mideast peace in world's interest

A ceasefire between Iran and the United States should be turned into a durable peace because the conflict has already hit countries far beyond the Middle East, including New Zealand and its Pacific neighbors, New Zealand Ambassador to China Jonathan Austin said on Thursday.

Speaking at a forum hosted by the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, Austin said Wellington was encouraged by news of the truce and hoped negotiators could build on it to secure what he called "a durable and long-lasting peace".

He said such an outcome would serve not only the people of the Gulf, but the broader international community, after the conflict exposed how instability in the Middle East could ripple quickly across distant regions.

Austin said New Zealand had already felt the economic impact of the war, particularly through rising prices and tighter supplies of oil and oil-related products. He pointed to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a key source of pressure, saying it had driven up fuel costs in New Zealand and raised concerns about shortages.

The ambassador said the fallout was also being felt across the Pacific, where many smaller economies rely heavily on diesel for power generation, leaving them especially exposed to external shocks. "We are all impacted by it," he said.

More broadly, Austin said New Zealand was concerned by a global environment in which established rules and norms were being eroded, economic ties were increasingly viewed through a security lens, and market openness was being reduced by rising economic nationalism.

He said such trends were troubling for New Zealand and other Asia-Pacific countries that had benefited from decades of relative stability since World War II.

Against that backdrop, he said, New Zealand wanted to redouble its efforts to help build what he described as "a region and a world that is secure, stable and prosperous".