More than 20 leaders from 16 countries on Sunday afternoon attended the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings in an effort to narrow their row over Iraq and other key issues.

The international event, the largest of its kind in scale held here in this French coastal town of Arromanches, was also attended German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came to the high-profile ceremony for the first time in history at the invitation of their French counterpart Jacques Chirac.

"France will never forget that the day hope was born," Chirac said Sunday at a US military cemetery ceremony at Colleville-sur-Mer, where more than 2,000 US troops lost their lives during the "Overlord" landing operations.

The alliance forged between the United States and Europe during World War II is strong and "is still needed today," US President George W. Bush said to a large audience at the ceremony, adding that his government would do it again for its friends.

While it is believed by some in Washington that the anniversary provides a timely reminder to European skeptics of American policy of their historic debt to the United States, European leaders paid more attention to the history in which the two peoples stood and fought shoulder to shoulder.

The trans-Atlantic ties have experienced ups and downs over the past 60 years.

The World War II and the subsequent Cold War saw the establishment and consolidation of the solid basis on which the trans-Atlantic ties have been built.

The fact that they had the same enemy during this period ensures that they stand together and adopt the same strategies.

However, the end of the Cold War and disappearance of their common enemy in last century have led to surfacing of their long-standing rifts overshadowed by their growing consolidarity during the Cold War.

The recent surge of Europe, coupled with the vanish of their common enemy, encouraged Europe to take an increasingly independent approach to regional and international affairs.

Their recent row over the Iraq issue constitutes the culmination of their widening rifts. Although nobody can stop their growing differences, leaders from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are reluctant to see the bilateral ties sliding further down to a dangerously low bottom.

They all feel the pressing need to mend the fences, especially against a dramatically changed geopolitical background brought about by the Iraq war and US unilateralism.

Observers here believed that in spite of the efforts by both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to narrow the rifts, it is really very difficult for them to forge an almost seamless friendship as they did in the war 60 years ago. This is mainly because these former allies are now formulating different strategies based on different attitudes to regional and world affairs.

But what is more important is that the strategic interests they still share will not allow any further serious damage to bilatera lrelations and it would surely prompt these leaders to make more efforts toward this end in the near future.

Source: Xinhua