NATO Secretary General meets with
US President Bush in Washington

Mr. de Hoop Scheffer also met with US Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, and National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley.

Issues on the agenda of the upcoming Bucharest Summit were discussed.

They also agreed that NATO is achieving substantial success in Afghanistan on the security front, but that more needs to be done to reinforce that success, both in the military and civilian areas.

They discussed NATO enlargement, in particular the aspirations of the three countries in the western Balkans. These issues, and many others, will be discussed at the NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting on March 6th in Brussels.

The Secretary General also gave an address on “Forging the 21st Century Alliance” hosted by the Brookings Institution at the University of California Washington Center.