[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 42, Number 13 (Monday, April 3, 2006)]
[Pages 584-586]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Following Discussions With President Olusegun Obasanjo of 
Nigeria

March 29, 2006

    President Bush. Mr. President, welcome back to the Oval Office. We 
have just had a discussion that covered a lot of topics. Every time I 
meet with the President, he brings a fresh perspective about the 
politics and the situation on the continent of Africa, and I want to 
thank you. I want to thank you for your leadership.
    The President and I talked about Darfur and the Sudan, and I made it 
very clear to him that we're deeply concerned about the humiliation, the 
rape, the murder that is taking place among the--against the citizens of 
Darfur. He agreed. And I want to thank you for your compassion.
    We talked and strategized about how to move forward, how to make it 
clear to the Sudanese Government that there will be a

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international response in working toward a peace. We talked about a dual 
track, that the rebels must come together and negotiate with the 
Government, and at the same time, we talked about bolstering the AU 
peacekeeping force with a blue-helmeted force. And I explained to him my 
desire to have a NATO overlay to make sure that force is robust.
    We talked about economic development. Of course, I brought up energy 
to the President. He's--he and I talked about the situation in the 
Nigerian Delta. He talked to me about his strategy to deal with the 
energy issue.
    And finally, I appreciate the decision he made regarding Charles 
Taylor. In my visit last week with the President of Liberia, we talked 
about Charles Taylor. The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to 
justice in a court of law will help Liberia and is a signal, Mr. 
President, of your deep desire for there to be peace in your 
neighborhood.
    So welcome to the Oval Office. It's good to have you here, sir.
    President Obasanjo. Thank you very much. And as usual, I want to 
thank you for the warm and hardy reception that you have accorded us.
    The areas that I would call the areas of concern, by the time I 
arrived here last night, seemed to have been definably dealt with by 
this morning, particularly the issue of Charles Taylor. And as I said to 
you about a minute--a few minutes ago, Charles Taylor should be landing 
in Liberia by now, which should start putting the issue of Charles 
Taylor behind all of us.
    I appreciate the understanding of everybody and the way that the 
issue has been handled. I met the press earlier today to actually give 
what was our own position and how we were hoping to deal with the issue 
of Charles Taylor's disappearance. And of course, I do not agree, must 
disagree that we have been negligent in the way we handled the Charles 
Taylor issue. If we had been negligent, then Charles Taylor would have 
got away. He would not have been arrested if there was connivance or 
condonation on our part.
    Having said that, we, of course, talked about the general situation 
of peace and security in the West Africa subregion, and how West Africa 
subregion, with Charles Taylor issue behind us, how West Africa 
subregion is gradually becoming a haven of peace. We have dealt with 
Togo; we have dealt with Guinea-Bissau; we have dealt with Sierra Leone. 
Hopefully, we are now dealing with Liberia. And things seem to be going 
fairly well in Cote D'Ivoire. Well, of course, we are keenly watching 
the situation in Guinea--Conakry.
    Then we looked at the rest of Africa, particularly Democratic 
Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the Great Lakes, generally. 
Then we talked about the issue of development, particularly security--
supplies, security, stability, and also price stability of hydrocarbons 
from the Gulf of Guinea area, and how we are working hard to establish a 
Gulf of Guinea commission that will also deal with the issue of 
reconciling and dealing with ending misunderstanding among those in 
that--among countries that are in the Gulf of Guinea, how we can protect 
and how we can monitor what happens in that area, because the 
hydrocarbon we need for our own development and we need for the economic 
development and progress of the world. We are moving in this regard not 
only by ourselves but also by our--with our development partners.
    Then, of course, we talked about NEPAD, which is where we work with 
the G-8 and--politically and individually.
    And we--I briefed the President on what we are doing with the Niger 
Delta, which is very important. And we are very grateful that the 
measures we are taking, which are essentially socioeconomic measures to 
address some of the grievances, identified grievances, will resolve the 
issues of the Niger Delta.
    I think these are some of the points. And I think--I want to thank 
President for remaining his charming self. [Laughter]
    President Bush. Thank you, sir.

Note: The President spoke at 10:30 a.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to former President Charles Taylor of 
Liberia, who was arrested on March 29 in Nigeria on United Nations war 
crimes charges; and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.

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