Bush: Iran nuke pact must be verifiable (Agencies) Updated: 2004-11-27 08:22
US President Bush declared Friday that charges of voter fraud have cast doubt
on the Ukrainian election, and warned that any European-negotiated pact on
Iran's nuclear program must ensure the world can verify Tehran's compliance.
"The only good deal is one that's verifiable," the president told reporters
as he emerged from his Texas ranch for a brief visit to a coffee shop.
![US President Bush talks with reporters before having lunch at a local coffee shop in Crawford, Texas Friday, Nov. 26, 2004. [AP]](xin_18110127084544565062.jpg) US President Bush talks with reporters before
having lunch at a local coffee shop in Crawford, Texas Friday, Nov. 26,
2004. [AP] | Bush issued a new appeal for the
power to delete specific items that he deems excessive from budget plans. He
spoke a week after Congress approved a $388 billion spending package that
lawmakers loaded up with special items for their home-state industries and
communities.
The president said he was not troubled by the total cost of the measure,
which he said conformed to the outlines of spending requests he had made to
lawmakers.
But, he said, "there's going to be things in these big bills that I don't
particularly care for."
"The only way a president can affect that which is inside the bill, other
than vetoing the entire bill, is to be able to pick out parts of a bill and
express displeasure about it through a line-item veto. I hope the Congress will
give me a line-item veto."
In 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that line-item veto power gave the president
unconstitutionally broad latitude to change laws enacted by Congress. Bush has
said he wants a new law that would pass constitutional muster.
World affairs dominated Bush's remarks here. He said he had lent his voice
earlier in the day to new efforts to achieve a stable, joint Catholic-Protestant
government in Northern Ireland.
Bush called Ian Paisley, whose Democratic Unionist Party represents most of
Northern Ireland's British Protestant majority, to try to nudge the process
forward.
The president waded in ahead of what is expected to be a week of high-stakes
negotiations on the details, and Bush aides said they expected him to call Sinn
Fein leader Gerry Adams as early as Saturday.
"Hopefully it will help," Bush said of his telephone diplomacy. "Anything I
can do to help keep the process moving forward, I'm more than willing to do so."
The United States and other Western nations contend that massive fraud marred
the presidential runoff election Sunday in Ukraine, and the country's highest
court has ordered election officials not to publish the results until an appeal
is heard next week. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited
reports of fraud in the election in saying the United States cannot accept the
results of presidential elections in Ukraine.
"There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that placed their election,
the validity of their elections, in doubt," Bush said. "The international
community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to
this, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way that brings credit and
confidence to the Ukrainian government."
Bush did not directly answer a question about what consequences Ukraine might
face if the dispute is not resolved to his satisfaction. Powell said there would
be consequences for U.S.-Ukraine relations if the government there did not act
"immediately and responsibly" to find a solution that respected the will of its
people.
As Bush spoke, several dozen Ukrainian protesters stood across the street,
waving their country's flag and calling on Bush to press for a fair election
result. "Will President George W. Bush now stand up to Russia's blatant imperial
overreach in Ukraine?" wrote Michael Balahutrak of Houston in literature
distributed at the gathering.
Bush also applauded efforts by Britain, Germany and France to get Iran to
honor its international treaty obligations to refrain from developing nuclear
weapons. But he said he was wary about whether Tehran could be trusted to honor
its obligations.
"The only good deal is one that's verifiable," Bush said, adding that British
Prime Minister Tony Blair had assured him he would seek such a pact.
The United States has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran and
European negotiators reached a tentative compromise on a deal committing Tehran
to freeze all uranium enrichment activities, diplomats said Friday, but the
Iranian government still must approve the agreement.
On Iraq, Bush said he remained hopeful that the country would conduct
elections scheduled for Jan. 30, despite a demand Friday by 17 political parties
in Iraq that the interim government postpone them for at least six months. Those
groups want security at polling places to be ensured.
"The Iraq election commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would
hope they would go forward in January," Bush said.
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