U.S. President George W. Bush said in a television interview Friday that any talk of U.S. plans for military action in Iran and Syria is "just not the truth" and vowed to resolve disputes with the two countries diplomatically. "We want diplomacy to work," Bush told Germany's ARD television. The president, who has charged Iran with pursuing nuclear weapons, has previously refused to rule out using military action against it, and U.S. relations with Syria have worsened since the Iraq war and the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Asked by the ARD interviewer about his statement before the Iraq war that there were no war plans on his desk only for the invasion to be launched nine months later, Bush said the situation with the Middle Eastern countries today is "totally different". In Iraq, he said, diplomacy had been exhausted. "The Iranian issue hasn't even been to the United Nations yet," he said. "In other words, there's a lot more diplomacy to be done." Two days before he leaves on a trip to Europe to visit U.S. allies, Bush praised Germany, France and Britain "for sending a clear message to Iran" in their negotiations with Teheran over its nuclear programme and assured Teheran that the United States was engaged in the talks. --More 2344 Local Time 2044 GMT
