ARROMANCHES, France: World leaders paid tribute yesterday to the thousands of Allied troops who fought and died in the D-Day landings in Normandy 60 years ago.

Putting aside differences over the Iraq War, US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac said modern leaders have a duty to honour the values soldiers died for by defending the cause of freedom and democracy together.

"France will never forget what it owes America, its steadfast friend and ally," Chirac told a ceremony attended by about 20 heads of state and government at Arromanches, a coastal village where heavy fighting occurred on June 6, 1944.

Hailing the presence of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the first German leader to attend D-Day anniversary events in France, Chirac said: "We hold up the example of Franco-German reconciliation, to show the world that hatred has no future."

Bush, standing beside Chirac at an earlier ceremony, said the United States and its European allies were bound together by the sacrifices made 60 years ago to help liberate Europe from the Nazis' stranglehold during World War II.

"Our great alliance is strong and it is still needed today," Bush told a crowd of war veterans at the US cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, a village near the beach codenamed Omaha where US troops came ashore and suffered heavy losses.

A 21-gun salute and a military flyover honoured those buried at the cemetery as Bush and Chirac stood at attention.

Many of the D-Day survivors, some in wheelchairs and many now in their 80s, embodied the spirit of reconciliation.

"The German soldiers had a job to do, just as we had a job to do," said 81-year-old British veteran John Rockley. "I feel no animosity towards them, and after all it was 60 years ago.

Bush and Chirac made their own pledges of reconciliation at talks in Paris on Saturday intended to mend ties strained by differences over the Iraq war, which France opposed.

Neither made any direct reference to Iraq yesterday, avoiding saying anything that might stoke a diplomatic row.

Some 30,000 troops were deployed in the area around Normandy's beaches and helicopters flew patrols overhead. Fighter planes were ready to shoot down any aircraft violating a no-fly zone around the event if ordered to do so.

(China Daily 06/07/2004 page1)