United States Joint Chiefs of Staff vice-chairman General James Cartwright will visit New Zealand this week.

Gen Cartwright will meet his New Zealander counterparts, and Defence Minister Wayne Mapp.

It will be the first time a vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has visited New Zealand since the position was established and he said he was delighted to be coming here.

"Our two countries are working cooperatively on a broad range of issues of mutual interest, and both governments are committed to expanding and enhancing that cooperation where it works to do so," he said in a statement released by the US Embassy in Wellington.