When US President George W. Bush comes to town next week, Washington's European allies will be hoping to extinguish the heat of transatlantic rancor over Iraq.
But just as one issue gets switched to the backburner for Bush's participation next Tuesday in EU and NATO summits, another in the form of Iran's nuclear ambitions threatens a fresh flare-up.
The EU trio of Britain, France and Germany has taken the lead in negotiating with Iran to persuade the Islamic republic to sign up to tough UN inspections of its nuclear facilities.
The US has thus far been content to let the powerful EU countries get on with it, but has of late begun to rattle its sabre a little more loudly. There is talk in Washington of military strikes if the negotiations fail.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Europe to prepare the ground for Bush last week. Her meetings were marked by what both sides agreed was a shared desire to move on from Iraq.
But Rice also urged the EU three to take a tough line with Iran, warning Tehran of UN sanctions if it refuses to renounce its suspected nuclear weapons program.
Michael Emerson, a Middle East expert at the Center for European Policy Studies, said Iran was the toughest nut on the table for Tuesday "because here you do have a real difference between the Europeans and the Americans."
"On the American side, there is a division of views between those who would like to drop bombs on every nuclear establishment in Iran versus the people in Washington who think that that would be a crazy idea," he said. "At this point, we don't know what President Bush thinks."
For its part, Europe would like to hear from Bush that the US will take a more constructive role in the delicate talks with Iran.
"I strongly encourage the US administration to actively support the Europeans' diplomatic efforts," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Saturday.
"Iran will only abandon its nuclear ambitions for good if not only its economic but also its legitimate security interests are safeguarded," he said, calling on the US to get involved in Gulf security talks.
The US, however, has no diplomatic relations with Iran and not so long ago, Bush was referring to its clerical regime as part of an "axis of evil."
To Europe's relief, that kind of rhetoric has disappeared since Bush took office last month for his second term, to be replaced by talk that now is the time for diplomacy.
There are reassuring noises coming even from US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, no slouch at upsetting the Europeans in the past.
"There's not much daylight between the approaches of the United States and the Europeans" on Iran, Rumsfeld said in Munich last weekend, arguing that both sides wanted to stop Iran getting the bomb.
Where there is disagreement, however, is on how to reach that goal.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS