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US woos Europe ahead of summit, but strains remain

AFP, Brussels
The new US commerce chief heads to Brussels this week, the latest administration member preparing for a landmark visit by George W. Bush, but despite the heavyweight wooing clear transatlantic strains remain.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez's visit, days before the US president arrives here next Sunday, follows trips last week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Rice hailed a "new chapter" in US-Europe ties battered by the Iraq war, while Rumsfeld welcomed European pledges to help NATO train Iraqi security forces, and downplayed the "ups and downs" of the last few years.
But neither could completely disguise continuing tensions, focused in particular on how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions as well as European Union (EU) plans to lift an arms embargo on China.
Amid the handshakes and smiles, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie underlined that turning a diplomatic page does not mean that the plot has been forgotten.
"That everyone loves each other, that is fundamental," she said after talks with Rumsfeld at a NATO
ministerial meeting in Nice Friday. "But that everything be forgotten? No," she said.
If not forgotten, Washington hopes that Iraq war differences will at least be kept out of the spotlight during Bush's trip to Europe, the centrepiece of which will be summit talks at NATO and the EU on Tuesday, February 22.
The re-elected US leader has made much of his desire to bury the hatchet with Europe, making Brussels his first foreign trip since starting his second term in the White House last month.
Perhaps almost as symbolically, Bush will have dinner on the eve of the summit with French President
Jacques Chirac, who spearheaded Europe's opposition to the 2003 Iraq conflict.
Both sides will no doubt make much of their reconciliation for the cameras. But behind closed doors it is difficult to imagine that all will be sweetness and light.
The EU's plans to end an arms embargo slapped on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre will no doubt make for interesting dinner table conversation.
President Chirac says the ban is "outdated," and has led a campaign within the 25-member EU to have it lifted.