Bush takes hardline on Iran

2004-08-09 19:23

Washington - President George Bush vowed on Monday to keep pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions, but he tempered his tough words with talk of diplomacy, countering Democrats who say he takes a go-it-alone approach on the world stage.

"Iran must comply with the demands of the free world and that's where we sit right now," Bush said at an "Ask the President" campaign event in a Washington. "My attitude is that we've got to keep pressure on the government, and help others keep pressure on the government - so there's going to be universal condemnation of illegal weapons activities."

Bush stressed United States efforts to work with other nations to make sure the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency asks Iran "hard questions" about its weapons activities. "Foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain have gone in as a group to send a message on behalf of the free world."

Part of the "axis of evil"

At one point, Bush started to say that the United States got Iran to sign an agreement that would permit inspections, but then quickly corrected himself to say the "world" got the Iranians to sign a protocol to allow site inspections.

The Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear programme. On Sunday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril. But she would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the programme if the administration could not win international support.

In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush included Iran with North Korea and Iraq in an "axis of evil" dedicated to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, North Korea has publicly resumed its nuclear development programme. And Iran's foreign minister announced a week ago that his country had resumed building nuclear centrifuges.

Iran said it was not enriching uranium, which requires a centrifuge. But Iranian officials said they had restarted manufacturing the device because Britain, Germany and France had not stopped the International Atomic Energy Agency from looking for possible violations of nuclear non-proliferation rules.

Hundreds of Bush supporters, many wearing Bush-Cheney campaign stickers on their clothes, attended the event on a campus of Northern Virginia Community College. About 30 supporters of Democrat John Kerry demonstrated outside chanting "Kerry! Kerry!" - AP

- SAPA