President Bush and Prime Minister Abe of Japan Participate i

April 27, 2007,11:09 A.M. EDT,PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you. Welcome. Mr. Prime Minister, Shinzo, welcome to Camp David. I thank you very much for making the long journey. I also thank you for bringing your gracious wife to dinner last night.,The Abes and Laura and I had a really good dinner; it was very relaxed. The Prime Minister married very well. I was so impressed by Akie's compassion¹, her intelligence and I will tell you, Shinzo, that Laura feels like she has a new friend now, and so do I. So we're really glad you're here.,joint²⁰ press availability Friday, April 27, 2007, at Camp David. White House photo by Joyce Boghosian" src="/upimg/allimg/20070428/1122030.jpg" width="254" align="right" border="0" /> We had the kind of discussion you'd expect allies to have. I would describe the talks as -- first of all, Shinzo and I met alone for a good period of time. Our talks were very relaxed, but they were strategic. We think about the interest of our country and we think about the interest of maintaining peace in the world. The alliance between Japan and the United States has never been stronger. And the Prime Minister and I will work hard to keep it that way. It's in the interest of our peoples that we work closely.,I told Shinzo one way to do so, of course, is to visit. I hope he comes to my ranch² soon. I looked forward to welcoming here to Camp David, but I also look forward to taking him down there -- one might call it a little slice of heaven.,We talked about the fact that our alliance -- and it is a global alliance -- is rooted in common values, especially our commitment to freedom and democracy. We discussed ways we can continue to partner together. There's no more important partnership⁴ than that through the six-party talks. We spent a lot of time talking about North Korea and our mutual⁵ desire for North Korea to meet its obligations. Our partners in the six-party talks are patient, but our patience is not unlimited⁶. We expect North Korea to meet all its commitments under the February 13th agreement, and we will continue working closely with our partners.,In Iran, we speak with one voice to the regime in Iran. Our nations have fully⁷ implemented⁸ the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council in response to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. Further defiance⁹ by Iran will only lead to additional sanctions and to further isolation¹⁰ from the international community.,Japan is the second largest donor¹¹ to the people of Iraq and the third largest donor nation to the people of Afghanistan, and I thank you, Shinzo and I thank the people of Japan for helping¹² these young democracies survive in a troubled world. I firmly believe that we're helping lay a foundation for peace for generations to come.,Over lunch the Prime Minister and I will discuss his upcoming trip to the Middle East. I will remind him he'll be traveling into an important region, where extremists and radicals¹³ are trying to prevent the hopes of moderate people, trying to stop peaceful societies from emerging. I'm looking forward to hearing about your trip before you leave, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you after you've been there., Shinzo and I talked about trade and the Doha round. We have a lot of bilateral¹⁴ trade between our two nations. Last year it totaled more than $270 billion, and that's positive for the American people and the people of Japan. Any time you have a lot of trade, there's always complicated trade issues. One such issue, of course, I brought up to the Prime Minister is I'm absolutely convinced the Japanese people will be better off when they eat American beef. It's good beef, it's healthy beef; as a matter of fact, I'm going to feed the Prime Minister and his delegation¹⁵ a good hamburger today for lunch.,But we also talked about the World Trade Organization and the Doha round, and how Japan wants to be constructive¹⁶ in getting this round completed, not only to enhance the prosperity in our own countries, but to help the developing world -- help lift millions of people out of poverty.,We talked about the environment and energy. I appreciated very much Shinzo's vision of using technologies to help our energy security, our economic security, and at the same time be responsible stewards¹⁷ of the environment. There's a lot of work that Japan and the United States can do together, particularly in fields like emission-free nuclear energy, nuclear power. The truth of the matter is, if people really want to solve the issue of greenhouse gases, civilian¹⁸ nuclear power, powering our energy grids¹⁹ by nuclear power is the best alternative available. We can work on new technologies through our joint nuclear energy action plan and through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to bring technologies on the market as quickly as possible to assure people that we can deal with the waste, for example, in a responsible way.,Over lunch I'm going to also remind Shinzo about my deep desire to have our folks driving automobiles²¹ powered by ethanol and biodiesel. I'm going to share with him our strategy about reducing gasoline consumption in the United States by 20 percent over the next 10 years as a result of ethanol, as well as our cellulosic ethanol technologies that are hopefully coming to market quickly.,All in all, we've had a very constructive, strong dialogue, and I am really pleased you came. Mr. Prime Minister.,PRIME MINISTER ABE: (As translated.) Last night we were invited by George and Laura, and myself and my wife were able to enjoy a very wonderful time together. And today we had one on one meeting, and also had a larger meeting. And we had very substantive²² discussions. The biggest objective of this visit this time was to reaffirm the irreplaceable Japan-U.S. alliance, and to grow this stronger as an unshakable alliance., I would like to thank the President and the American people for their very warm welcome yesterday. I visited Bethesda Navy Hospital and the Arlington Cemetery²³, and prayed for the repose²⁴ of the souls of those who died for the cause of stabilization²⁵ and reconstruction²⁶ of Iraq and Afghanistan, and prayed for early recovery of those injured. And I would like to pay respect and express gratitude²⁷ for the noble sacrifice the United States is making.,And in our meeting the President expressed his strong determination to carry through the task of Iraq's reconstruction. And I told the President that Japan understands and supports U.S. efforts of further stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq, and Japan will carry on its own efforts to the same end. I also told him that Japan will be with the United States at all times and that we feel proud as an ally of the United States.,Through this meeting, I've renewed my determination to work with the United States on various challenges facing the international community on the basis of our common values. We were able to speak our minds with regard to our respective political convictions in the midst of this very open and free atmosphere at Camp David and deepen our mutual trust.,I explained to the President that as the mission that my administration I will strive to move Japan beyond the post-war regime. As part of this endeavor, I explained to the President that I launched on the eve of this trip a blue-ribbon panel for the purpose of reshaping the legal foundation for national security in a way that will benefit -- that will befit the times, now that the security environment surrounding Japan is undergoing major change.,With regard to the economy, I told the President that I'm determined²⁸ to carry it through, structural²⁹ reforms in Japan, because Japan's growth is important for the growth of the United States as well as the entire world. And I received strong words of support from the President for this direction that Japan is seeking.,We agree that we need to build on response to -- we agreed that we need to build our response to the North Korean nuclear issue and the numerous challenges in East Asia on the Japan-U.S. alliance. And we agreed to step up cooperation in security, economic and cultural exchanges, and many other areas to further strengthen this irreplaceable alliance between Japan and the United States. And I welcomed the conclusion of documents that provide for the strengthening of concrete cooperation in such areas as the economy, cultural exchange and nuclear energy.,We did take a lot of time to discuss North Korean nuclear issues. We agreed to work together to realize a more peaceful and stable Korean Peninsula by making North Korea completely give up its nuclear weapons and programs through the six-party talks.,With regard to the abduction issue, President Bush once again expresses unvarying commitment to support the government of Japan saying that to this day the strong impressions he got when he met Mrs. Yokota, around this time last year, still remains³⁰. I told the President that before my departure this time, Mrs. Yokota had told me ever since she last heard from her daughter, Megumi, that the most moving moment was her meeting with the President. So the President expressed his, as I said, unvarying commitment to support of the government of Japan on this abduction issue.,We agree that the current state of the six-party talks, as well as North Korea's attitude towards the abduction issue are regrettable. And we'll work for closer coordination³¹ between our two countries to achieve progress.,Let me also point out, as the President mentioned earlier, that an important progress has been made on the climate change issue. And I finalized³² with the President a joint statement on the subject matter. It is gratifying that we agreed, Japan and the United States agreed at the leaders' level to study jointly³³ an intensified³⁴ dialogue on ways and means to make progress towards the ultimate objective of stabilizing³⁵ greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, to resolve the environmental issues and to resolve the greenhouse gas issue. I believe this represents an important progress.,It is essential that the world community act on the climate change issue in concert, and Japan and the United States agreed to work together on this front. Thank you.,PRESIDENT BUSH: Two questions a side. Deb, would you start off, please?,Q Thank you, Mr. President. Some people are concerned that you're going soft on North Korea. You said you had --,PRESIDENT BUSH: Said -- what did you just say? There's an echo in here.,Q Some people say you're going soft on North Korea. You said you had unlimited patience with the regime. They've missed their deadline on shutting down their nuclear reactor³⁶ --,PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I said our patience is not unlimited.,Q Not unlimited. My question, sir, is how long are you willing to wait to have them shut this down? Are we talking days, weeks, months? And --,PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I appreciate that very much. Do you want to ask the Prime Minister something, too? It's an old U.S. trick here. Keep plowing³⁷ through it. (Laughter.)