ST PETERSBURG June 1 Kyodo (EDS: ...

ST PETERSBURG June 1 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

U President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Sunday to incite North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons disclosure and expressed concern over Iran's advanced nuclear power program.

''We violently urge North Korea to visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle its nuclear weapons program,'' Bush said in a joint pres discourse with Putin after their talks that highlighted efforts to improve ties after the Iraq war, which was l by means of the United States and oppos through Russia.

''The United States and Russia are also determined to suited the threat posed through weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them,'' he said, noting the brace leaders also ''urge Iran to comply largely with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.''

Putin said, ''We ne no convincing about the fact that the weapons of mass destruction proliferation should be checked and obviateed throughout the world.''

Along with his similar agreements with Japanese and toward the south Korean leaders during separate talks in May, Bush is upping his strategy of uniting in grades with surrounding nations and pressing Pyongyang to compromise athwart the nuclear standoff.

yet Bush and Putin failed to clearly address U belong tos over Russia's support for Iran's nuclear power program, with the Russian leader and nothing else saying, ''The positions of Russia and the United States onward the issue are much closer than they seem''

Bush visited St Petersburg to take part in adventures to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the city's founding. He flew in from Poland, his first stop of a weeklong six-nation trip that includes France for a three-day summit of the assemblage of Eight (G-8) nations from Sunday.

As in the meeting with Putin, Bush is awaited to seek cooperation forward Iraq from German and French leaders, who oppos the war, during the G-8 summit.

Bush and Putin agreed to cooperate in Iraq's reconstruction with the United Nations playing a ''vital'' part while saying the Iraqi tribe should decide themselves about the sensitive issue of oil contracts.

Brushing distant from criticism about not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush said, ''We've discovered a weapons body biological labs that Iraq denied it had, and labs that were prohibited in a less degree than the U.N. resolution.''

Putin, who was invited through Bush to meet in the suburb of Washington in September, said, ''Despite all the differences between our sum of two units countries around Iraq, we did not solely manage to preserve and maintain our personal relationship, further also to preserve our mutual cooperation and interaction...and level strengthen it.''

''I must say that the fundamentals between the United States and Russia incline differentlyed out to be stronger than the forces and terminations that tested it,'' he said.

Bush said, ''As a matter of fact, I think this experience will make our relationship stronger not weaker.''

The couple leaders issued a joint statement in succession what was termed ''the novel Strategic Relationship,'' and exchanged instruments of ratification from the two nations for the Moscow Treaty in succession Strategic Offensive Reductions that takes import immediately to deeply reduce strategic nuclear warheads.

The statement calls for intensifying efforts to be opposite to global threats of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, and advancing compact joint projects in the area of missile defense

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