For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 22, 2005

President Welcomes King Abdullah of Jordan to the White House
The Oval Office

	President's Remarks

1:48 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: Your Majesty, welcome back. We have just had a wide-ranging and fruitful discussion about the Middle East. I want to thank you very much for your vision of a peaceful world, one in which people are able to practice their religion freely and one in which women are empowered. Your Majesty is a leader and the United States of America respects his leadership a lot.

One of the things I asked His Majesty to do was to go to visit with Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas, to help in the peace process there, and he's graciously agreed to go. I want to thank you, sir, for taking a leadership role; it will be very helpful to have your voice of reason there to talk to both leaders.

Relations between Jordan and America are strong and important and vital. And, again, I want to welcome you and thank you very much for your advice and counsel on a lot of different subjects.

KING ABDULLAH: Thank you, Mr. President; always a pleasure to be back. And thank you very much for always the kind support that you've given me and all Jordanians.

As you said so, we've had some very fruitful discussions on the peace process and Iraq. And I want to thank you again for the support that we have gotten from you for so many years on giving hope to Israelis and Palestinians. And I know that you want to find a solution that Israelis and Palestinians can meet in peace and harmony and I hope that if we can help in that respect, that is a great honor for us.

Thank you for allowing us to see you again, sir.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you.

END 1:50 P.M. EDT