BEIJING, Feb 21: US President George W. Bush failed on Thursday to win assurances from China that it would help curb global terrorism by halting ballistic missile exports and encourage North Korea to restart arms control talks.

The issue of arms controls has moved to the top of Washington’s foreign policy agenda since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States.

Bush said at a news conference in Beijing he had asked Chinese President Jiang Zemin to use his influence to entice North Korea back to the negotiating table.

He also voiced concerns that China was allegedly selling weapons technology and material to Iraq and Pakistan.

But Jiang declined to comment on arms proliferation or whether he would convey Bush’s offers of talks to Pyongyang, saying only that he hoped US-North Korea weapons talks would resume.

China’s rocky relationship with the Bush administration improved significantly when it backed Washington’s military campaign against the Taliban.

But Beijing has since joined a growing number of US allies in voicing concern about a potential widening of Bush’s “war on terrorism” to include Iran, Iraq and North Korea, which the US president accuses of being part of an “axis of evil”.

On Thursday the EU’s special representative for Afghanistan, Klaus-Peter Klaiber, said the European Union rejected US charges that Iran was working to destabilize Afghanistan and described Washington’s allegations as “unfortunate”.

US officials have indicated that Iraq is the most likely first target of future military action. Asked if he could support such action, Jiang urged patience and insisted: “It is important to solve the problems through peaceful means.”

On Wednesday, Bush denied any plans to attack North Korea. But he also made clear his personal antipathy for what he called the “despotic regime” in Pyongyang.

South Korean experts said that despite his repeated offer of talks Bush’s tone had left little prospect of North Korea returning to the negotiating table, with or without encouragement from China.

In Afghanistan, concern over the country’s stability continued to run high with British troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) again coming under fire in Kabul.

Jiang serenades Bush: President Jiang Zemin proved to be a Communist Party animal on Thursday at a dinner with President George W. Bush, serenading the visiting leader and his wife — in Italian.

Accompanied by an accordion player, Jiang sang “O Sole Mio” and took to the dancefloor with US First Lady Laura Bush, Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and the wife of the US Ambassador to Beijing, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The leaders supped on soup of foie gras; braised chicken with saffron; grilled muttonchop and stewed veggies; cream of Chinese wolfberry and lily soup; pastries and fruit.

Russia flyover: The US secretary of state’s plane has done it. US commercial flights do it all the time. Now US President George W. Bush’s Air Force One airplane will fly over Russia without stopping there.

No “Air Force One” has ever sliced through Russian air space unless a US president was on his way to a destination in Russia or the former Soviet Union, according to the White House.

But when Bush wings his way home after a week-long trip to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, the aircraft will do just that in a manoeuvre that will save the US leader 70 minutes of flight time and two hours of refuelling time.

The luxurious blue and white plane, emblazoned with the words “United States of America”, will fly over eastern Russia, the Sea of Okhotsk, Siberia, skim the edge of the Arctic Circle, fly over Alaska and Canada before streaking for Washington.—AFP