Joint Press Conference with US President George W. Bush, European Commission President Jose Barraso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Excerpts)

April 30, 2007

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PRESIDENT BUSH: We talked about Iran and the need for our nations to continue to work closely together to send a unified message to the Iranians that their development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable to peace.

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QUESTION: And on a separate issue, your foreign policy chief has said that the U.S. should talk to Iran. I wondered whether you could tell us exactly what the U.S. should be talking to Iran about.

President Bush, because I have a question on that, your Secretary of State is going to a conference in Iraq where the Foreign Minister from Iran is going to be present. Do you expect her to have conversations with the Foreign Minister of Iran? What will she talk about? And if she does have a conversation, is there going to be a change of U.S. foreign policy? Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT BARROSO: Regarding Iran, we also share the same views, basically, about how to deal with Iran. And it's not only the United States and Europe, I'll say -- there are several resolutions with the United Nations Security Council. And the Iranians should understand that this message they are receiving from the global community -- by the United States, by Europe, but from others; the Security Council adopted several resolutions. Proliferation, nuclear proliferation is, indeed a threat, not only to regional stability, but to the global peace and global stability. So I believe we are united in sending this very clear message here, but also in the United Nations, to the Iranian authorities.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Should the Foreign Minister of Iran bump into Condi Rice, Condi won't be rude. She's not a rude person. I'm sure she'll be polite.

But she'll also be firm in reminding this representative of the Iranian government that there's a better way forward for the Iranian people than isolation. My hopes, of course, is that the foreign minister would see the resolve of our government, through Condi, to continue to rally the world to convince the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions. I happen to believe a significant threat to world peace, today and in the future, is the Iranian threat if they were to end up with a nuclear weapon -- "today" is the wrong word -- "in the future," they don't have a weapon today.

And so I -- if, in fact, there is a conversation, it will be one that says if the Iranian government wants to have a serious conversation with the United States and others, they ought to give up their enrichment program in a verifiable fashion. And we will sit down at the table with them, along with our European partners, and Russia, as well. That's what she'll tell them.

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