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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 11, 2007
President Bush Meets with President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy
Oval Office
11:48 A.M. EST
PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. President, it's my honor to welcome you to the Oval Office. We just had a very substantive meeting. And it will be my honor to feed you lunch. I doubt it is going to be -- the food is going to be as good as the food I had when I visited your beautiful country.
Bilateral relations with the United States and Italy are very good. We have a lot of interchange between our countries, with business as well as travel. And there are millions of Italian Americans who will be pleased, Mr. President, to know we've got good relations.
Secondly, we just had a really around-the-world trip, as we discussed problem areas and our mutual desire to work together to help solve those problems.
We discussed Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo. I briefed the President on the recent Annapolis conference that we hosted to help get the peace process started between the Palestinians and Israelis. We had a very compatible relation -- discussion, because by and large, we're in agreement on how to advance the solutions to these issues.
And finally, I'm -- have expressed and will continue to dialogue with the President about my deep concern about Iran. Iran is dangerous. Iran -- we believe Iran had a secret military weapons program. And Iran must explain to the world why they had a program. Iran has an obligation to explain to the IAEA why they hid this program from them. Iran is dangerous, and they'll be even more dangerous if they learn how to enrich uranium.
And so I look forward to working with the President to explain our strategy and figure out ways we can work together to prevent this from happening for the sake of world peace.
So I'm sure proud to have you here, Mr. President, and welcome.
PRESIDENT NAPOLITANO: Thank you very much, Mr. President. It has been a great pleasure for me to accept your invitation. You kindly addressed me six months ago when you were in Rome, and we had already then very positive talks.
And in the past few months, there have been important and rather positive developments in the international situation. First of all, I wanted to express to President Bush my deep appreciation for the responsibility he wanted to take to foster negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian authorities in view of a peace treaty.
Italy is present in several areas of crisis. In this moment, it is an Italian general who is taking the command of the Kabul region in Afghanistan. In Iraq, we give our contribution to the stabilization of the country, participating in NATO training activities, and as a matter of fact, there has been an undeniable improvement in the security conditions in Iraq in the past few months.
In fact, generally speaking, we share the same concerns and we express a common commitment. Speaking particularly of Kosovo, we could verify how close are our positions on the way to deal with the independence of Kosovo, taking into account the difficult overall situation in the region.
We want to discuss constructively our positions on all questions and all threats. We just want to give our contribution and our idea how to face successfully all threats, including the very serious threat of nuclear weaponization of Iran.
I just want to add a word about Europe, because in the past few months, there has been something important. Europe was able -- the European Union was able to overcome a stalemate, a very dangerous institutional stalemate. The constitutional treaty has been put aside, but a new treaty has been outlined unanimously, and the day after tomorrow it will be signed in Lisbon. And on the basis of this new treaty -- which has to be ratified by the signed, I am sure it will be ratified by all 27 member states -- we'll have new figures, we'll have new institutions more capable to affirm the role of a united Europe on the international scene.
Italy and Europe both must think there is possibilities for international security and peace, for the cause of liberty and democracy. And the more Europe will be united and will be effective, I think the better we can reach these goals.
We cannot ask the United States to take care of our security. International security is a common duty. And Europe must be up to this challenge.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, sir. Glad you're here.
END 11:59 A.M. EST
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