Translated material
Bush will visit Israel for the first time
George Bush begins an eight -day tour of the sixth countries of the Middle East, during which he will make a visit to Israel for the first time in seven years in the White House, and Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will also visit. Bush used to fly to Israel only once - in 1998, when he was the Governor of Texas. "On Tuesday, I will go aboard the VVS -1 aircraft and will leave for a trip to the Middle East. This is a region that is of great strategic importance for the United States and I look forward to this visit," Bush said last Saturday in a weekly radio display to the country.
“The battle that unfolds in the Middle East is inherently more than an armed clash, it is an ideological struggle, in which there are forces of terror and death on one side, and on the other, tens of millions of ordinary people who want free and peaceful life for their children. The future of the Middle East and US security depend on the result of this struggle,” the American president said. After the Second World War, “America has invested time and resources in order to help countries make the transition from dictatorship to democracy,” as well as ensure stability and security in a number of regions of the world, noted Bush and expressed confidence that “the same transformation could take place in the Middle East.” "The peoples of the Middle East may be sure that the power of freedom will defeat tyranny and terror," the US president said, according to which this call will be the main topic of his upcoming visit to the region. Advisor to the US President in National Security Stephen Hadley, who will accompany Bush on a trip, told reporters that the head of the White House was flying out of Washington on Tuesday and arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday 9.
During the visit to Israel, which will last until January 11, Bush, except Tel Aviv, will also visit Jerusalem and visit Ramallach on the west coast of Jordan. During his stay in Israel on Wednesday and Thursday, the US President will negotiate with Israeli President Shimon Perez and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and also visit the western coast, where he has planned meetings with the head of the Palestinian National Administration Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister of the Palistine Government Salam Fayyad. On Friday, Bush will hold a meeting with the special representative of the Middle Eastern Quartet, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair, and also laid a wreath to the monument to the victims of the Holocaust in the Memorial complex "Yad Vashem" in Jerusalem, after which he will fly to Kuwait, where he has planned to meet with the Emir Kuwaiti Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. While in Kuwait, on Saturday, January 12, the head of the White House will visit the U.S. Ground Forces Camp Arithjan and meet with American military personnel deployed there, and will also hold a meeting with the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Croker and the commanding of American troops in Iraq, General David Petreus, who will arrive in Kuwait from Baghdad for this. In Kuwait, Bush also has a meeting on the problems of democracy, which will be held in the form of a "round table" with the participation of representatives of Kuwaiti women's organizations.
From Kuwait on January 12, the US President will arrive in Bahrain, where he will meet with King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifoy, and on January 13 he will visit the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet of the United States located in the Bahrain, operating in the Middle East and in the Gulf of Persian. On the same day, Bush will fly to the United Arab Emirates, where he will negotiate with the President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifoy Ben Zaid Al Nahayan, and then speak with a public speech in Abu Dabi about the situation in the Middle East. On Monday, January 14, Bush will arrive in Dubai, where he intends to meet with the ruler of this emirate Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktum, and then head to Saudi Arabia, to negotiations with the king of Saudi Arabia Abdalla. Tuesday, January 15, Bush will hold Er-Radiad in the capital of Saudi Arabia. According to Hadi, the presenter has a number of meetings in this city, but the details of this day of the visit were not disclosed. From Saudi Arabia, the US president on January 16 will fly to Egypt at the sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, where he has planned negotiations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After them, the head of the White House in the afternoon will fly back to Washington, said Hadley.
In connection with the upcoming visit by Bush to Israel and other countries of the region, the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda distributed on Sunday on the Internet a video on which the press secretary of this organization, former American citizen Adam Gadan, called on to meet the Crusader-killer of Bush during his visit to the Arabic peninsula at the beginning January and meet it not with flowers or applause, but with bombs and mined cars. " The deputy spokesman for the White House Tony Fratto, who was asked to comment on the al-Qaeda statement, told reporters flying along with Bush on Monday on a presidential plane from Washington to Chicago that the new video on the Internet is another reminder that there are people trying to prevent advance to freedom and democracy. " At the same time, Fratto said that he "does not know anything" about any changes in the plans of Bush’s trip to the Middle East due to a video with the terrorist warnings of Al-Qaeda. On Monday, the FBI official Richard Kolko told reporters that the American intelligence agencies carefully analyze the video with Gadan’s statement to establish whether there is any information about the possible threat or possible plans for terrorists.
The American and world media, which carefully monitor the preparation for the visit of Bush to Israel, also predict that the situation around Iran will be one of the most important confidential topics of the US president. The British newspaper Times on Sunday even made a statement that in Jerusalem the head of the White House will present a report on the most recent data on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the possibility of stopping this program. “Times”, in particular, claims that the Minister of Defense of Israel Ehud Barak wants to convince Bush that the Israeli military attack on nuclear facilities in Iran is feasible if diplomatic efforts are not successful, and that several options have been prepared for such a blow. The White House has not yet commented on the approval of the British newspaper. At the same time, announcing the trip of Bush, the US Presidential Advisor Stephen Hadley confirmed last week that the Iranian topic will rise in the negotiations of the US president with leaders in the region. According to him, during the visit, the president intends to “discuss in a confidentially and secretly make it clear that we (USA) understand the problem that Iran creates for the region, and that our friends and allies in the region can count on our obligations to the region and on our continuing presence in the region.”