President George W. Bush told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that the United States supports a proposal from Moscow that could deny Iran the ability to produce nuclear weapons. "It may provide a way out," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said of the Russian plan, discussed during an hour-long meeting between the U.S. and Russian presidents that ranged across a variety of difficult topics. Hadley said Bush raised the matter with Putin but would not describe what he said. "Sometimes there are issues that can be more productively discussed out of public view," he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. The Bush-Putin session on the sidelines of the annual conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum emphasized their shared fight against terrorism, Moscow's aspiration to join the World Trade Organization by the end of the year, and the campaigns to stop North Korea and Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
