Obama claims G-8 resolve against Iran

L’AQUILA, Italy | Wrapping up the three-day Group of Eight summit, President Obama said Friday that the world’s major powers are ready to act if Iran fails to show good-faith efforts and negotiate about its nuclear development program by a September deadline agreed to by the G-8 leaders.

Later in the day, the president met in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI in a 30-minute private audience in which the pontiff stressed the church’s opposition to abortion and stem-cell research and Mr. Obama said he was committed to reducing the number of abortions in the United States.

Mr. Obama pushed back at reports that U.S. officials had tried and failed to get a stronger G-8 response, including new sanctions, to head off Iran’s nuclear development program. Iran insists its nuclear efforts are for peaceful, civilian uses.

But he also raised expectations for the September meeting of major countries in Pittsburgh, saying the nations will take stock then of whether Iran has complied with international demands.

The joint G-8 statement on Iran “provides a time frame,” Mr. Obama said. “If Iran chooses not to walk through that door, then you have on record the G-8 to begin with, but I think potentially a lot of other countries, that are going to say we need to take further steps.”

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Over three days of meetings here, Mr. Obama called for new organizations to reflect the realities of the new international order, met with the pope, and won mostly rave reviews from his fellow leaders. Late in the evening, Mr. Obama and his family arrived in Ghana for a brief visit, the first to a sub-Saharan African country since Mr. Obama was elected.

“The new Obama administration has done everything absolutely right,” said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the summit host.

The president said the U.S. and its partners are “not going to just wait indefinitely” while Iran works on a nuclear weapon.

Mr. Obama spent two days in Russia before traveling to Italy for three days of meetings surrounding the G-8, which represents the world’s leading economies and includes Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia.

But the president’s Russian overtures were rebuffed on another front Friday when President Dmitry Medvedev said he still opposes U.S. plans to put a missile-defense site in Eastern Europe despite Washington’s assurances. Mr. Medvedev said he stands by an earlier vow to place short-range missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the border with Poland if the U.S. missile shield is built.

“If we don’t manage to agree on the issues, you know the consequences. What I said during my state of the nation address has not been revoked,” he said, according to the Reuters news agency.

Mr. Obama and his advisers took great pains this week to ease Moscow’s concerns over the missile-defense plan, arguing it poses no threat to Russia and, instead, is designed to counter missile attacks from rogue nations, notably Iran.

Despite that hiccup, Mr. Obama’s presence dominated the meetings in Italy.

“I was impressed, but so were all our colleagues. I can tell you that we are all very favorably impressed with President Obama,” Mr. Berlusconi said in his wrap-up press conference.

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