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Bush begins last Europe tour
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-10 19:17 BRDO PRI KRANJU - US President George W. Bush heads into an EU summit Tuesday seeking to tighten the squeeze on Iran's nuclear programme, a central message of his farewell European tour.
Ahead of the summit the US leader, already dismissed by some officials in Brussels as a "lame duck," held talks with President Danilo Turk of Slovenia, which holds the EU's rotating presidency. "My first trip to Europe as president began in Slovenia and my last as president to Europe," Bush said as he arrived, recalling his June 2001 meeting here with then Russian president Vladimir Putin, which actually came at the end of a European tour. This time round Bush also hopes to secure more help with war-battered Afghanistan during his visit, which will also take him to Germany, Italy, the Vatican, France, England, and Northern Ireland. But the White House has warned not to expect any "dramatic announcements" on enduring disputes over climate change, trade, an EU ban on US chlorine-washed chickens or new ways to prop up the faltering Middle East peace process at the summit at Brdo Pri Kranju, near the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. Many observers agree that EU-US relations have improved since the early days of the Iraq war, however polls show that Europeans are looking forward to the change of US administration, especially if Democrat candidate Barack Obama wins power. There will at least be a joint statement in which Washington and its European partners will jointly warn Tehran to freeze its suspect nuclear program or face further sanctions. "We will fully and effectively implement" the existing UN sanctions against Tehran "and we are ready to supplement those sanctions with additional measures," says a draft of the joint text of the half-day diplomatic gathering, obtained by AFP. At the same time, amid growing fears of possible US military action before Bush leaves office, the statement notes that the leaders "reiterate our belief that a mutually satisfactory, negotiated solution remains open to Iran." Tehran rejects Western charges that its nuclear programme hides an atomic weapons quest, but is already under three rounds of UN sanctions for refusing to freeze its uranium enrichment efforts. Bush hopes to persuade the EU to do more to stop the flow of money through Iranian banks, which Washington believes are helping to fund Iran's nuclear programme, according to the US special envoy to the European Union. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, in Slovenia for the summit, indicated Monday that he will probably travel to Tehran on Sunday for talks aimed at convincing Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. |
