Bush, Putin press North Korea and Iran on nuclear weapons
President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin urged North Korea and Iran today to halt development of nuclear weapons, and Bush stood by his assertion that Iraq had prohibited arms.
Both the United States and Russia are “determined to meet the threats of weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said at a joint news conference in the Russian city of St Petersburg.
“We strongly urge North Korea to visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear programme.” He added: “We are concerned about Iran’s advanced nuclear programme and urge Iran to comply in full with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Bush answered tersely when asked about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – his primary justification for going to war with that Arab country.
“We’ve discovered weapons systems, biological labs, that Iraq denied she had, and labs that were prohibited under the UN resolutions,” Bush said.
Earlier this weekend, Bush pointed to two suspected biological laboratories which both the Pentagon and US weapons hunters have said do not constitute arms.
Russia opposed the Iraq war, leading to friction with the United States. But both leaders said they were putting the dispute behind them.
The “fundamentals of the relations between the United States and Russia turned out to be stronger than the forces and events that tested it,” Putin said. Bush nodded in agreement, and said terrorism would unite the two countries.
“We are working closely to confront the challenges of our time,” Bush said. “Both of our countries have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists, and our governments are taking action to confront this threat.”
Bush invited Putin to Camp David in September, and Putin seemed to signal with a nod that he accepted. The two leaders held their news conference while seated at massive twin white desks inside Konstantin Palace. They met privately for 45 minutes before the news conference.
The leaders were asked whether they had made any headway in persuading Russia to scale back its sales of nuclear technology to Iran – transactions the Bush administration claims is helping Tehran to develop a nuclear weapons programme. Russia has denied that its help is going toward weapons development. Iran says its nuclear programme is strictly for peaceful development of electrical energy.
“The positions of Russia and the United States on the issue are much closer than they seem,” Putin said. “We need no convincing about the fact that weapons of mass destruction proliferation should be checked and prevented throughout the world.”
The two leaders signed papers certifying that both Russia and the United States have now formally ratified the ”Treaty of Moscow,” the agreement last year reducing arsenals on both sides by two-thirds. The US Senate passed it earlier this year, and the Russian parliament ratified it last month.
Bush’s remarks today, and a speech Saturday in Krakow, Poland, set a conciliatory tone for the G8 meeting, an annual summit of major industrialised nations in Evian, France. Differences over Iraq caused an unprecedented breach between the United States and long-time partners such as France and Germany, which led the opposition to the war.
Bush spoke to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for the first time in six months today.
“How are you?” Bush said after approaching Schroeder in St Petersburg and offering his hand, according to German officials. The two leaders spoke briefly but were not seated at the same table during a banquet dinner. They hadn’t spoken since last November when Schroeder ran for re-election on an anti-war platform.
“America and European countries have been called to confront the threat of global terror,” Bush said in his Krakow speech. “Each nation has faced difficult decisions about the use of military force to keep the peace. We have seen unity and common purpose. We have also seen debate – some of it healthy, some of it divisive.”
The G8 meeting runs until Tuesday, but Bush will cut short his stay and depart for the Middle East on Monday for talks with Arab leaders in Egypt and then a summit in Jordan with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister.
