ORLANDO - In his first public reaction to a letter sent him by Iran`s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, US President George W. Bush said it failed to respond to international concern about Tehran`s nuclear program.
"It looks like it did not answer the main question that the world is asking and that is, `when will you get rid of your nuclear program?`" Bush said in a roundtable discussion Tuesday with several Florida newspapers.
The letter sent Monday by Ahmadinejad was the first from an Iranian leader to a US president in more than a quarter century, and called for "new ways" to settle long-running tensions that have reached a new peak over the nuclear dispute.
Iran argues it has the right to nuclear technology for civilian purposes but the United States maintains it could be concealing efforts to build a nuclear bomb.
Tehran portrayed the letter as an important diplomatic initiative, but US officials dismissed the document as more philosophical treatise than political overture.
05/10/2006 15:24 GMT