WTO NEWS/Bush defends WTO move
 

Bush defends WTO move

WASHINGTON, President Bush defended his decision not to oppose an Iranian bid for World Trade Organization membership despite its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Application doesn't mean acceptance, he said, and not blocking an Iranian application to the trade organization seemed "a reasonable decision to make in order to advance negotiations with our European partners." Bush made the comment in a White House news conference.

Britain, France and Germany are negotiating with Iran in an effort to get Tehran to permanently end enrichment of nuclear fuel that could be used for weapons.

U.S. acquiescence on Iran's bid was in answer to the Europeans asking Bush to offer Tehran inducements for continuing the talks.

"Our policy is very clear ... the Iranians violated the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) agreement, we found out they violated the agreement, and, therefore, they're not to be trusted when it comes to highly enriched uranium.

"Our policy is to prevent them from having the capacity to develop enriched uranium to the point where they're able to make a nuclear weapon."

Iran had been discovered conducting nuclear activities at a facility it had not declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency.