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Her Excellency Ms Nancy Pelosi

Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

									The Hague, 10 March 2009

Dear Ms Pelosi,

As you know, this year we are celebrating 400 years of historical
relations and friendship between America and the Netherlands. The Dutch
East India Company ship the Half Moon sailed from the Netherlands in
April 1609, reaching the island of Mannahatta in the September of that
year. The anniversary will be marked by celebrations in Amsterdam and
New York throughout the year 2009. 

The commemorative year was launched by Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of
New York, and Job Cohen, the mayor of Amsterdam, on 28 January 2009. I
have pleasure in enclosing the programme for the celebrations with this
letter. 

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to come to the
Netherlands and visit the Dutch parliament. Depending on your schedule,
you could also attend the New York Nights in Amsterdam in April, or the
Transatlantic Seminar of the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg to
mark the launch of the book Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations
on 2 September 2009. 

I hope that 2009 will be a truly historic year, and that it will
strengthen our bilateral relations and serve as a landmark of
Dutch-American friendship for future generations. I look forward to
meeting you.

Yours sincerely,

Gerdi A. Verbeet

President of the House of Representatives

of the States General of the States General of the Netherlands

cc: 

- Drs F.C.G.M. Frans Timmermans, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of
the Netherlands

- Mr E. Kronenburg, Secretary General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
the Netherlands

- Members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of
Representatives of

  the States General of the Netherlands

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