Bush visualises greater cooperation with France

Washington, May 8: The Bush administration has said that the United States looks forward to working with French President-elect Nicholas Sarkozy, expressing the confidence that the two countries will be able to cooperate on many issues, despite differences on Iraq.

US President George W Bush had telephoned Sarkozy on Sunday to offer congratulations and hoped for close relations between the two countries.

The two leaders will have their first meeting next month at the Group of Eight (G8) Summit in Germany.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said yesterday that ''despite some frictions, we continued to work closely with France on a number of important issues during President Jacques Chirac's government, and we certainly look forward to cooperation with the French,'' adding there are ''certainly real opportunities to work together on a broad range of issues.'' France had disapproved of the US military action in Iraq in 2003, bringing under strain their bilateral relations.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said frictions over the military intervention in Iraq had been a thing of the past and the two countries had been working very closely on issues such as Lebanon, Afghanistan, and missile defense, as well as efforts to combat terrorism and promote nuclear non-proliferation.

France's efforts with the four other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (the P5 + 1) against Iran's nuclear programme ''has been a model for how we would like to work with others,'' McCormack added.

The French president-elect who visited the US last year, had met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

UNI