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Skriven 2006-06-08 23:34:34 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0606085) for Thu, 2006 Jun 8
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President Bush Welcomes President Bachelet of Chile to the White House
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 8, 2006

President Bush Welcomes President Bachelet of Chile to the White House
The Oval Office

President's Remarks view

˙˙˙˙˙ In Focus: Global Diplomacy

11:50 A.M. EDT

PRESIDENT BUSH: It is such an honor for me to welcome to the Oval Office
the President of Chile. Madam President, welcome.

PRESIDENT BACHELET: Thank you.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I was told ahead of time that I was to meet a very charming
person, and my briefers were right. I appreciate very much your dedication
to values that are important -- human rights and human decency, the right
for people to be able to speak freely and to vote. I admire your personal
story. I also thought it was very interesting that the President, before
she came to see me, went by a middle school where she had been educated. It
shows that she's dedicated to education and the welfare of the people.

I assured her that the United States of America shares her same sense of
social justice, and that our desire is to help, when we can, people to
become educated so they can realize their dreams.

We talked about the neighborhood. She shared with me her strategy to
encourage there to be peaceful development and prosperous development. I
assured the President I'm very interested in her points of view. I look
forward to working with you. The neighborhood is very important to the
United States of America; it's very important for our country to be engaged
and working with friends and allies to help others. So I've been looking
forward to this meeting for quite a while. We've got very good relations
with Chile, and I intend to keep them that way.

And Madam President, you're welcome, I'm really glad you're here.

PRESIDENT BACHELET: Thank you, Mr. President. I am very glad to be here and
as President Bush has said, Chile and the United States have very good
relationships and we'll continue that way. And we have political,
commercial relationships, and we really are happy of how our relations have
developed. And we have talked and shared opinions about how we can build
peace, how can we fight together against poverty, for social justice, how
we can help strengthen democracy in the region. And how we also can look at
issues as energy innovation, education, health and so on.

It's for me an honor to be here. After I lived here as a child, and then as
an adult, it's always for me a wonderful possibility to be in a country
where I have learned to love the American people, where I learned to --
some experiences as how you can live in a country with different cultures,
traditions, the different ethnic groups, and that's possible, and how you
can integrate. And we want to integrate more in the region, we want to
continue developing the best relationships with the United States, with the
government and we hope we succeed in this covenant.

Thank you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, appreciate it.

END 11:54 A.M. EDT

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