*EPF201 02/13/01
White House Report, Tuesday, February 13, 2001
(Bush/Japan) (350)
BUSH PHONES PRIME MINISTER OF JAPAN AND APOLOGIZES FOR ACCIDENTAL COLLISION
Before leaving the White House January 13 on a domestic trip, President Bush called Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori of Japan from the Oval Office to express to him personally his regrets for the accidental collision of a U.S. submarine with a Japanese trawler off the coast of Hawaii.
"I called the Prime Minister today...and apologized on behalf of the country," Bush told reporters on Air Force One as he returned from Norfolk, Virginia.
"I assured him that we will do everything we can to try to find or recover" the bodies from that trawler, Bush said.
He added that the Prime Minister did not bring up the allegation that the U.S. submarine did not do enough initially to rescue the victims. "I have yet to hear all the facts from (Defense) Secretary Rumsfeld and I look forward to what he has to say," Bush said.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed reporters about the phone call on Air Force One on the way to Norfolk.
The two leaders, Fleischer reported, "spoke for approximately 10 minutes. The President expressed his regrets, apologized for the accident and said the United States will do all it can to be of assistance to the Japanese government and the Japanese people."
Bush said the U.S. government "will work with Japan and do all that we can," to help retrieve the sunken trawler, Fleischer said.
"As for the specific type of operation," Fleischer referred reporters to the Department of Defense.
Fleischer reminded reporters that President Bush had "expressed the nation's sentiments" February 12 as a moment of silence before his speech at a U.S. army base in Georgia.
Others from the U.S. government also have made calls on Bush's behalf, Fleischer said. "So it was appropriate" for him to personally speak with the Prime Minister this morning.
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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