Sarah Palin, the self-styled “hockey mom” who could soon be a heartbeat from the presidency, met her first foreign leader yesterday in a sit-down with Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan.

Mrs Palin, wearing a business-like black suit and accompanied by two foreign policy advisers, chatted with the Afghan leader about his infant son before holding talks for about 25 minutes.

“What's his name?” the candidate asked. “Mirwais,” Mr Karzai replied. “It means 'The Light of the House'.” “Oh nice,” she said. Mr Karzai added: “He's the only one we have.”

The Republican vice-presidential candidate, who only got a US passport last year, hit the diplomatic circuit on the margins of this week's UN General Assembly session in New York in an attempt to burnish her foreign policy credentials.

The diplomatic tête-à-tête marked a sharp change of pace in her campaigns after America's newest political phenomenon addressed a crowd of 60,000 in Florida.

Ms Palin has rebuffed questions about her lack of foreign policy experience by saying that she did not need a “big fat résumé” stuffed with meetings with foreign leaders — an implied criticism of her Democratic rival, Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Nevertheless, the Alaska Governor has scheduled meetings with seven world leaders plus Henry Kissinger and the rocker-activist Bono during this week's annual UN session.

The exposure to international diplomacy will help to inoculate her against charges that she is too inexperienced, before her TV debate with Mr Biden on October 2. Perhaps wary of a photo-opportunity with George Bush, Ms Palin declined the chance to sit in the General Assembly to watch him make his farewell speech to the UN.

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