*EPF503 03/14/2003
White House Report, March 14: Azores Meeting, Phone Calls, Pakistan
(Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed) (600)

BUSH TO ATTEND MARCH 16 SUMMIT ON IRAQ IN AZORES

President Bush will travel to Portugal's Azores islands in the North Atlantic Ocean Sunday, March 16 to discuss there with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's President of Government Jose Maria Aznar how best to get Saddam Hussein to disarm as required by the United Nations, the White House announced March 14.

The United States, Britain and Spain are the joint sponsors of the resolution on Iraq now pending before the United Nations Security Council.

Bush will discuss with Blair and Aznar "how best to proceed to make it unequivocally clear to Saddam Hussein that there will be serious consequences if he fails to disarm," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters. Portugal's Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso will host the one-day event.

"The president has said all along that he will exhaust every option. He is traveling to meet with leaders, to share his assessment of the threat to peace posed by Saddam Hussein's defiance. The leaders will discuss all final diplomatic options," said Fleischer said.

"I think you can see this meeting as a sign of the determination of the president to go the last mile. And meeting with these leaders affords the president the opportunity and the chance to review this diplomacy as it's brought to its conclusion," Fleischer said. The three leaders "have been talking repeatedly on the telephone. ... They've reached the judgment that the best process now is to meet in person."

"(T)here are still two issues that remain at play that have been at the core of this from the very beginning," said Fleischer. "One is the complete total and immediate disarmament of Saddam Hussein, exactly as called for in Resolution 1441. And the other is for Saddam Hussein and all his top leaders to leave the country."

Asked whether the March 17 deadline for Iraqi compliance remains, Fleischer said there is "no change in that status, no change in the deadline. That remains the resolution that's on the table," before the United Nations Security Council.

President Bush, he added, "continues to push forward for a vote on the resolution before the council."

The Azores, a group of islands off the coast of Portugal, "was chosen as a logical meeting spot that is roughly in between all three nations. It's, from a logistical point of view, the easiest place for all three to go," said Fleischer.

BUSH CONTINUES TO TALK BY PHONE WITH WORLD LEADERS

President Bush the morning of March 14 spoke by phone with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, and Crown Prince Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, Fleischer reported.

The president discussed with each of them the Middle East "road map" that he discussed in his Rose Garden remarks the same day, and he "reiterated the importance of pursuing the path to peace in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians," Fleischer said.

The president also spoke on the phone the same morning with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark about the need to disarm Saddam Hussein, Fleischer said, and with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair.

BUSH TO MEET MARCH 28 WITH PAKISTAN'S PRIME MINISTER

President Bush will meet with Pakistan's Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali at the White House on March 28th, Fleischer announced. "The leaders will discuss bilateral, regional, international issues, as well as our close cooperation between the United States and Pakistan on the war on terror."

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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