Bush on farewell Europe tour seeks to pressure Iran

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush goes into his farewell European summit on Tuesday seeking to work with allies to ratchet up pressure on Iran over its nuclear program but still at odds with them over climate change.

Bush is due to meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Janez Jansa, prime minister of current European Union president Slovenia, before he heads off to the capitals of Europe's four biggest powers.

Washington and European governments have played down the chance of dramatic announcements during the visit, which comes in the twilight of a presidency marked by fierce opposition from many Europeans to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Divisions over Iraq have eased somewhat, even as Europeans look increasingly past Bush to his successor who will be chosen in the November election.

Despite that, a draft of the summit statement obtained by Reuters showed the United States and EU were ready to threaten extra measures against Iran on top of U.N. sanctions if Tehran keeps defying demands to suspend sensitive nuclear work.

The U.N. Security Council passed a third sanctions package against Tehran in April, and Washington has pressed the EU to deny some Iranian banks access to the world financial system.

EU diplomats have said recently the bloc was prepared to go beyond the approved sanctions, citing previous travel bans and asset freezes on Iranian officials.

MORE COOPERATIVE APPROACH

Bush, accused by critics of "cowboy diplomacy" during much of his presidency," has tried to take a more cooperative approach with allies in his second term. He hopes to forge a foreign policy legacy defined by more than Iraq.

With low approval ratings at home, Bush acknowledges, however, he is also unpopular in Europe. "A lot of people like America. They may not sometimes necessarily like the president," Bush told Slovenia's Pop TV before arriving in Ljubljana late on Monday.

On climate change, EU policymakers say they have given up trying to get Washington to join with the bloc in signing up now for binding cuts of greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. officials insist that big developing nations such as China and India have to make similar commitments for the United States to join in too, and say Europeans hoping for big changes with a new president will be disappointed.

"Barack Obama and John McCain are very close to the positions of the administration and there is no difference with the administration on the need to engage China," the U.S. envoy to the EU, C. Boyden Gray, told reporters.

But polls show Europeans are especially fond of Obama, a Democrat who would be the first black U.S. president, for his opposition to the Iraq war, which has frayed America's image.

Obama and McCain both win high marks in Europe for calling for the closing of the Guantanamo military prison where terrorism suspects are held. Bush says he wants to shut it down too but only after other arrangements are made for detainees.

THE DOLLAR

Money matters will also figure in Bush's weeklong trip, which will see stops in Germany, Italy, France and Britain.

He made clear before leaving Washington that he would press his commitment to a "strong dollar" -- its weakness is seen as a barometer of the U.S. economic slowdown -- and his concern about record oil prices.

Bush will also seek EU support to help combat treatable diseases in Africa and provide health care in Afghanistan, a White House official said.

He will ask for financial commitments to treat so-called neglected tropical diseases such as hookworm and river blindness, which is caused by a parasite spread by blackflies.

"These diseases are treatable and beatable by medicines that are available today," Dan Price, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, told reporters aboard Air Force One with Bush.

Bush will also propose boosting the number of health care workers in Afghanistan, he said without elaborating.

A decade-old EU ban on U.S. poultry imports is also likely to be raised. Though affecting only a fraction of trans-Atlantic trade, it is taken by Washington as the test of a new body designed to smooth such trade disputes.

For the Bush era, Slovenia carries special meaning. It was there Bush met Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2001 and said he had peered into his soul. Critics called him naive, and relations with Moscow have since deteriorated. Bush and some European allies differ on how to deal with a resurgent Moscow.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Ljubljana and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington; Editing by Stephen Weeks)