‘Force not ruled out on Iran’

Washington, July 3: US President George W. Bush said on Wednesday that "military options remain on the table" in nuclear disputes with North Korea and Iran but underlined that he preferred a diplomatic resolution.

"I have always said that diplomacy has got to be the first choice of solving any of these problems. But military options remain on the table," Mr Bush said in a roundtable interview with Japanese news outlets.

The President had been asked whether the six-country-talks approach he embraced for dealing with North Korea could be effective with Iran and about charges he ignored diplomacy when it came to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Mr Bush has frequently warned that he has not ruled out using force against Iran, but has done so less frequently amid six-country diplomatic efforts aimed at defusing the nuclear dispute with North Korea.

White House aides and Mr Bush himself have said that it would be irresponsible for a US President to categorically rule out using force, saying that could de-fang diplomatic efforts with difficult countries.

Mr Bush said North Korea’s decision to provide an unprecedented accounting of its nuclear programmes last week may have stemmed from leader Kim Jong-Il’s decision to end his country’s deep political and economic isolation. "Expectations are that he will move forward, action for action," as part of a tit-for-tat diplomatic arrangement promising the secretive Stalinist country rewards for doing so, Mr Bush said. "We expect there to be full declaration of manufactured plutonium. We expect there to be a full disclosure of any enrichment activities and proliferation activities. And we expect the abductee issue to be solved. "And if they choose not to move forward on an agreed-upon way forward, there will be further isolation," he said.

—AFP