US President George W. Bush said Thursday that he hoped Iran would buckle to growing international global over its nuclear program but warned he was "not going to tolerate" a nuclear-armed Tehran. In a wide-ranging press conference, Bush refused to comment on an Israeli raid inside Syria and declined to confirm reports that North Korea gave nuclear know-how to Damascus.
After weeks of escalating US rhetoric on Iran and a stark French warning to prepare for a possible war over its suspect nuclear program, Bush insisted that "the objective, of course, is to solve this peacefully."
"I am hopeful that we can convince the Iranian regime to give up any ambitions it has in developing a weapons program, and do so peacefully. That ought to be the objective of any diplomacy," he said.
"It's imperative that we continue to work in a multilateral fashion to send that message. And one place to do so is at the United Nations," Bush said.
The president tersely refused to comment on alleged North Korean nuclear help for Syria but warned Pyongyang that any such activities would break an aid-for-denuclearization pact reached under six-country negotiations. "To the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop their proliferation if they want the six-party talks to be successful," he said, calling that "equally important" to giving up nuclear weapons programs.
