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Bush and Asif Zardari to discuss strikes in Pakistan

* Zardari, Karzai already looking beyond Bush, will meet with Sarah Palin at UN assembly

WASHINGTON: US President George W Bush is expected to meet President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Besides his meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Bush’s only official sit-down is with Zardari. Topping their talks will be the series of suspected US missile attacks and a US-led cross-border ground assault in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas.

Current and former US officials have told The Associated Press that in July, Bush secretly approved aggressive operations on the Pakistan-Afghan border. The move signalled impatience with Pakistani efforts to eliminate Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts thought to be staging areas for attacks in Pakistan, neighbouring Afghanistan and elsewhere. In his first address to parliament on Saturday, Zardari said Pakistan would not tolerate violations of its sovereignty by any power in the name of fighting terrorism. Hours after Zardari spoke, a massive suicide truck bomb devastated the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, killing more than 50 people. With just four months left in office, Bush’s only option is to work closely with the new government led by Zardari.

Beyond Bush: Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who will be at the White House on Friday, are both looking beyond Bush. The two, along with other dignitaries, have agreed to have sidebars while at the UN with Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin who is trying to burnish her foreign policy credentials. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who also will be in New York, stepped up his anti-US rhetoric, exclaiming on Sunday that his nation’s military would ‘break the hand’ of any aggressor that targets his country’s nuclear facilities.

The theme of his speech is a tough sell for Bush, who still is trying to shed the caricature of a go-it-alone cowboy. White House officials insist Bush never swaggered in spurs across the world stage. They say he has spent years working with other leaders to rein in the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, get a Middle East peace deal, fight extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan and find lasting stability in Iraq. Still, Bush has not been able to shake the perception. ap

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