WACO, United States (AFP) — US President George W. Bush rolls out the rustic carpet for German Chancellor Angela Merkel this weekend with talks at his Texas ranch, days after France's new president worked to charm Washington.
Bush welcomes Merkel Friday to his Texas estate, a diplomatic plum reserved for close allies, to discuss issues like Iran's nuclear program and the war in Afghanistan, which have fissured relations between the two friends.
Eager to banish those clouds from the talks on the "Prarie Chapel" property, the White House smothered past criticisms of restrictions on German forces in Afghanistan and said Bush would work to dispel fears of an attack on Iran.
The two leaders will take up "the need to continue the diplomacy with Iran" despite Washington's belligerent tone and war worries stoked by a new round of US sanctions on the Islamic republic, said Bush spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
The US president will tell his guest that "this is part of our diplomatic strategy, that while, yes, we never take any options off the table, this was the next step in trying to make diplomacy work," said Johndroe.
Johndroe flatly refused to repeat past US jibes at NATO partner Germany for refusing to allow its troops to deploy in the dangerous part of southern Afghanistan to fight the Taliban insurgency.
"Strategically we see eye-to-eye. I think tactically there are some slight differences," on issues like Iran and Afghanistan, said the spokesman, who downplayed the likelihood of any breakthroughs at the ranch.
"The discussions this weekend are the continuing consultations that the president has with the chancellor. So I'm not looking for any specific announcements on any specific issue like that at this point," he said.
On Iran, Merkel has insisted that all diplomatic efforts must be exhausted to resolve the standoff with Tehran over its nuclear program, which some Western nations believe masks a bid to develop atomic weapons.
The chancellor was to make the case in Texas that the West can use sanctions to bring Iran back from the brink without military strikes, after recent US threats triggered some jitters in Europe.
"If the current talks are not successful, then Germany will also be willing to implement further, tougher sanctions," Merkel said in an interview with the daily Berliner Zeitung this week.
Washington has been leading a push for an immediate third wave of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic which has defied UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a possible step towards building nuclear weapons.
Johndroe suggested that it was time for companies in Germany, Iran's largest economic partner in Europe, to divest themselves of business dealings there, citing Tehran's "nefarious activities."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to brief Merkel on her recent trip to the Middle East, and the chancellor and Bush were also to discuss the crises in Burma and Lebanon as well as climate change.
Merkel is the first German leader to be invited to the Bush family ranch in tiny Crawford, Texas.
"The message is: Angela Merkel is taken seriously as an important partner. Gerhard Schroeder certainly wasn't," said analyst Nile Gardiner from the Heritage think-tank.
Ties between the United States and Germany notably soured under Merkel's predecessor Schroeder, who steadfastly opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, backing the stand taken by then French president Jacques Chirac.
But Bush is known to have a soft spot for Merkel, who took office in November 2005, and even relished a down-home barbecue of wild boar with her in her electoral district in July 2006.
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