National
No meeting planned between Bush and Zapatero
By h.b.
May 20, 2008 - 8:17 AM

Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will not be visiting the United States before the end of the Bush administration. The news was confirmed by the Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos after holding a meeting in Washington with his United States counterpart, Condoleezza Rice.

The meeting between the foreign ministers is designed to improve bilateral relations between the two countries, which have never really recovered since the decision of Spain to remove their troops from Iraq in 2004.

Spain claims relations with the United States are now normal, but that does not mean that they can get even better and Moratinos is reported to have expressed a desire ‘to open a new more politically ambitious relationship’.

Moratinos arrived in Washington from Houston where the XIII annual meeting between the Spain-United States Council took place and saw a meeting between many businessmen from both countries.

Today Moratinos goes on to meet with the foreign policy chiefs from the John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns.