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Sunday, February 20, 2005
Bush to Focus on Israel, Iran in Bid to Mend Iraq Rift With EU
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Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush will call for a unified front with Europe to promote peace in the Middle East, spokesman Scott McClellan said as Bush began a four- day visit partly aimed at healing a rift over the war in Iraq.
``He'll talk about the immediate goal of peace in the Middle East and specifically about the unique opportunity we have to seize, to reach a settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,'' McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Bush arrived in Brussels today on his first post-election trip to Europe, anxious to repair relations with France, Germany and Russia, which opposed the war in Iraq, and to build a consensus on how to handle issues ranging from Iran to China.
``I know we had a difference of opinion, and it was a big difference of opinion on Iraq,'' Bush told European reporters at the White House on Friday. ``But now is the time for us to set aside that difference and to move forward.''
Americans and Europeans shouldn't expect too much from this visit, said Stephen Sestanovich, a professor of diplomacy at Columbia University in New York.
``You don't look for a trip to completely change the atmosphere,'' said Sestanovich, who's also a Russian and Eurasian studies expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``Politicians look for small steps,'' he said at a forum in Washington on Thursday. ``They want a symbol of some kind of cooperation.''
Move Beyond Iraq
Bush hosts a dinner with French President Jacques Chirac on Monday in Brussels. He will meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Mainz, Germany, on Wednesday and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, on Thursday.
Bush wants the U.S. and Europe to move beyond Iraq and to promote political and economic freedom in the broader Middle East, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity during the flight to Europe.
At the same time, he'll seek to use his re-election in November to answer those in the European Union who are skeptical that his policies have support in the U.S., the official said.
Bush will raise concern about the EU's intention to lift a 15- year-old weapons embargo on China and what the U.S. says is Iran's development of nuclear arms technology, the official said.
While U.S. and European leaders have expressed optimism over last month's election of Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other European leaders have urged the Bush administration to become more directly involved in the Middle East peace process.
Difference Over Hezbollah
The U.S. and EU also disagree over the treatment of Hezbollah, a Shiite organization that the U.S. labels a terrorist group and the EU does not.
Bush's meeting with Putin may amount to a showdown over Russia's aid to Iran in building a nuclear power plant.
Putin ``has made some decisions that I look forward to hearing, in a very private way -- you know, why he made the decisions,'' Bush said on Friday. He told reporters he ``can be frank'' with the Russian leader. ``If you disagree with him, you tell him you disagree with him,'' he said.
Putin said Friday he would continue helping Iran build a nuclear power plant. The U.S. has urged him to abandon the reactor project in the Iranian city of Bushehr, arguing that it will facilitate a nuclear weapons program.
Bush told German ARD television on Friday he wants to work with Europe on halting Iran's nuclear program, the DPA newswire reported. Yet the U.S. has refused to participate in negotiations with Iran that are being led by Britain, France and Germany, sparking concern that the Bush administration wants to keep open a military option.
`Simply Not True'
Bush said the U.S. wants a diplomatic solution.
``I hear all these rumors about military attacks, but it is simply not true,'' DPA, in translation, cited Bush as saying. The president said Iran must stop supporting groups such as Hezbollah, which controls much of southern Lebanon, the German newswire reported.
Putin's statement that Russia will assist Iran's development of nuclear technology and continue military sales adds tension to his meeting with Bush, said James Goldgeier, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
``The timing of this, coming just before the summit, is provocative,'' said Goldgeier, a professor at George Washington University.
Putin Cites Elections
Putin told Hassan Rouhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme Security Council, that Russia will continue cooperating with Iran on nuclear energy projects, at a meeting on Friday in Moscow.
In a statement posted on the Kremlin's Internet site, Putin said the country's recent elections ``convince us that Iran doesn't intend to produce nuclear weapons.''
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Washington Post on Feb. 16 that his agency has uncovered no evidence in the last six months to substantiate U.S. concerns that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb.
Last week's car bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, also puts a focus on Syria. United Nations resolution 1559, passed last year, calls on other governments to remove themselves from Lebanon.
Bush cited U.S. cooperation with France in winning approval of that resolution, saying he hopes he and Chirac can discuss working together after the split over Iraq.
Bush recalled the U.S. ambassador to Syria in response to Hariri's killing on Feb. 14 and Syria's continued military involvement in Lebanon more than 15 years after it promised to withdraw.
``If we speak with a single voice, Syria will understand the message,'' Bush said in an interview yesterday with French television channel France 3, speaking through an interpreter.
Bush will have to change the way he has dealt with allies in the past, said Goldgeier of George Washington University.
``The great certainty that the American policy is right makes it difficult to work with others who have a different point of view,'' Goldgeier said. ``If that doesn't change, it's going to be difficult to work together.''
Bloomberg
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